Nadir by Chai
Character(s): Josh Lyman
Pairing(s): Josh/Donna
Category(s): Angst
Rating: MATURE
Summary: Josh gets a piano--and a hard time.
Written: 2006-03-01
Author's Note: This is a sequel to "Buying Time," and was first posted
on JDFF in December 2004. Like the earlier story, this one is set in a
world in which Zoe never got kidnapped and nothing in S5 or later has
happened. A warning: one scene contains a graphic description of
sexual violence. You should be able to see it coming, and it's only
one paragraph, so feel free to skip ahead at that point if you like.

A few readers have told me that they find the events in "Buying Time"
and this story improbable. The plot in "Buying Time" was actually
drawn in part from real life: it was inspired by a friend of mine who
tried for some time to continue going to work while battling severe
side-effects from chemotherapy. The central physical event in "Nadir"
is something that, while not common, is also not unheard-of: it's one
of the recognized possible side-effects of certain drugs used in the
treatment of cancer. I chose it here not to sensationalize a serious
subject, but because I've always thought it would take something
fairly dramatic to get Josh to examine himself and his emotions and to
open up.

All the usual disclaimers about my not owning the characters apply.
The words to "Black Water" used here are by the Doobie Brothers; the
ones to "Hail to the Chief" by Alfred Gamse.


Nadir
na-dir (noun)

1.That point on the celestial sphere directly opposite the zenith and
directly below the observer; the lowest point. The sun is at the nadir
at the very middle of the night.
2.The period of time following chemotherapy when the white blood cell
count is at its lowest, and the body's resistance is at its weakest.
3.An extreme state of adversity; the lowest point in a person's career
or fortunes; the time of deepest despair; the darkest moment.




Part 1-


"Why on earth?"

"God knows."

"It's huge."

"Yes, it is."

"Enormous. Vast. Hulking."

"All of those things."

"Your living room has just shrunk to half its usual size."

"Yes, it has."

"Why on earth?"

"God knows."

"I mean, it's not as if you played."

"No."

"You don't, do you? I've never heard you."

"No, of course I don't."

"No, that's pretty hard to imagine-Josh Lyman, sensitive musician.
What on earth was she thinking of?"

"God knows. What is my mother ever thinking of? She's a nut."

"Josh!"

"It's true, Donna-don't look at me like that. She's always been a nut.
A nice nut, but a nut just the same."

"I like your mother."

"I like her, too. She's still a nut."

"She's just-artistic."

"Oh yes, definitely artistic. Vague, dreamy, totally impractical."

"And charming."

"Absolutely charming. Just off in her own little world, part of which
includes being convinced that, since I'm her son, I must be artistic
too. I had to do drawing lessons after school for years, until the
teacher finally told her it was hopeless. I narrowly escaped ballet."

"That bad, huh?"

"That bad."

"What are you going to do with it?"

"I dunno. Leave it there, I guess."

"It takes up that whole end of the room."

"Yeah, it does."

"If you send it back, she'll be upset, won't she?"

"Afraid so. I'm stuck with it."

"It's huge."

"Yeah."

"What was she thinking of?"

"God knows."

* * *

"Hey, Donna."

"Hey, C.J."

"How's Josh?"

"Pretty good, thanks. Almost too good; he's so restless he's driving
himself crazy."

"And you too, huh?"

"Definitely me too."

"I heard he was going to start coming in again? Just for a couple of
hours a day?"

"Not for a while yet. He's dying to, but the President and Leo are
holding firm."

"Poor Josh. And poor you."

"Yeah. I was thinking, would people like to come over to his place
tomorrow night? We could do pizza or Chinese. He'd love to see you
all, and it's been a while since we've been able to get everyone
together at once."

"Can Josh manage that? The food, I mean."

"He'll be okay as long as there's stuff that's not spicy. He's doing a
lot better that way."

"That's terrific. I'll rope in Toby; you check with Will."

"Will you ask Carol, too? And I'll get Charlie, and Zoe if she's free;
Josh always likes seeing her. There's going to be a surprise guest,
too."

"Oooo, who?"

"It wouldn't be a surprise if I told you, would it?"

"Cheek."

"No comment, madam Press Secretary."

"If surprises are the order of the evening, can I bring another one along?"

"Oooo, who?"

"Wouldn't be a surprise if I told you, would it?-Go on, you can say it."

"Really?"

"Of course."

"Cheek."

"No comment, madam Deputy Deputy."

"Tomorrow night then. At Josh's place."

"Tomorrow night."

"Oh, C.J.?"

"Yes, Donna?"

"It's going to be a bit crowded."

"If everyone makes it, yes it is."

"More crowded than that."

"What do you mean?"

"You'll see."

* * *

"What the hell is that?"

"It's a piano, Tobus. Haven't you ever seen one before? The only
instrument that's classified as both string and percussion-"

"I mean, what the hell is it doing in Josh's living room?"

"Maybe we should ask Josh that. Josh! What the hell is that?"

"It's a piano, C.J. Haven't you ever seen one before?"

"She means, what the hell is it doing in your living room, Josh?"

"Ask my mother."

"Your mother?"

"Yeah, she sent it up from Florida. It came a couple of days ago."

"Why did she do that?"

"God knows."

"I mean, most people associate Florida with other things. Beaches,
shells, floppy straw hats. Citrus fruit. If she wanted to send you
something from Florida, why didn't she send you a box of oranges or
grapefruit?"

"Well, the acid's not too great on my stomach these days, but I don't
think she was going for a souvenir of the sunshine state, C.J."

"She wasn't?"

"Josh's mother lives in Florida, C.J. She's not just there for a holiday."

"I thought she lived in Connecticut."

"She moved. A few years ago."

"Well, why would she send you a piano, Josh? They're pretty expensive
things to ship, and that one must have cost a fortune."

"I know."

"Why then?"

"God knows."

"It's not as if you play. You don't, do you? I've never heard you."

"No, of course I don't."

"Yeah, I can't really imagine that."

"He's so clumsy."

"Thanks, Donna."

"And not exactly the sensitive type."

"No soul."

"I do too have soul!"

"Not that kind of soul. A political soul, maybe. A
rip-their-throats-out, Republican-hating soul."

"We've all got that."

"Don't forget his Doobie Brothers soul."

"'Old black water, keep on rollin''"-

"Oh God, now you've got him started."

"'Mississippi moon, won't you keep on shiiiii-nin' on me?'"

"Someone shut him up!"

"'I'd like to hear some funky dixie-land-'"

"Shut UP, Josh!"

"'Pretty mama come and'-Ouch! Hey!"

"Doesn't your own mother know what you're like?"

"It's a wise parent knows her own child."

"Don't get all Scriptural on us, Will; Toby will try to take you to temple."

"Josh's mother is artistic."

"So?"

"She thinks he must be, too."

"Poor woman."

"Yes, it's sad, really. She must have been so disappointed."

"Yeah, all I ever did was graduate from Harvard and Yale, and work at
the White House. Never gave her anything to brag about."

"What are you going to do with it?"

"Leave it there, I guess. What else can I do?"

"Wow. You're willing to live with that? It really dominates the room."

"For a while, anyway, until I can figure out how to get it back to her
without hurting her feelings."

"There's the doorbell. Get it, Josh."

"Hey, SAM!"

"Hey, Josh! How are you? How are you feeling, buddy?"

"I'm fine. A lot better. What are you doing on the East Coast?"

"I had a big meeting in Boston yesterday."

"This is D.C. There's a few hundred miles' difference."

"Same coast, though. And I wanted to see you. I talked to Donna about
it yesterday."

"Well, thanks for coming, bro. She's over there, waiting to put
lipstick marks all over your face and give you a beer. C.J.'s here,
and Toby-hey, everybody, look who's here!-and Charlie and Zoe are
coming over later. And this is your doppleganger, Will. Will, this is
Sam-I think you've heard about him once or twice. And-wait a minute,
who's this? Danny, what the hell are you doing here?"

"C.J. told me to come. She said Donna said it was okay."

"Donna! What are you doing inviting the press to a private party?"

"DANNY! What are you doing here?"

"You told C.J. he could come."

"I didn't know it would be Danny! C.J., why didn't you tell me Danny
was coming?"

"Hey, I thought you guys would be glad to see me."

"Yeah, man, we're glad. We didn't know you were back in town, is all.
Guinness, or Sam Adams? Or Toby's brought some Jack, and there's some
decent gin."

"I'll take a Guinness, thanks. So how're you doing, Josh?"

"Getting sick of that question."

"Yeah, I'll bet you are. You should stop getting yourself into states
that force people to ask it."

"I'll try to keep that in mind."

"Josh, what the hell is that?"

"It's a piano, Danny; haven't you ever seen one before?"

* * *

It had been a terrific evening. Sam had ended up playing show tunes,
badly, on the big Steinway while C.J. sat on the piano and sang. Both
Danny and Toby had spent a lot of time watching her. Carol hadn't been
able to make it, but Charlie and Zoe had dropped in, and everyone
except Josh had drunk too much of a variety of alcohols, and stuffed
themselves on kung pao chicken, moo shu pork, and moo goo gai pan.
Josh been able to eat some of the mango chicken, and had allowed
himself half a pint of beer; his stomach was doing a lot better than
it had been, but he still had to be careful. Now everyone had left
except Donna, who was fussing around the kitchen, putting the last of
the food away and waiting for the kettle to boil for another cup of
coffee for herself. He'd actually tried to help with the cleanup, but
Donna had taken one look at his face and pushed him down onto the
couch. He was tired enough not to protest very much.

He was struggling to stay awake for her when the doorbell rang. Josh
pulled himself to his feet and walked over to open it. "Leo! You've
missed the party. Come on in and have some coffee, though; Donna's
just getting some."

Leo McGarry looked his deputy over carefully. He wasn't sure he liked
what he saw. Josh was looking a lot better than he had a month ago;
rest and a better diet-the Bartlets had kept their promise and had
arranged for most of Josh's meals to be delivered from the White House
kitchen-had definitely had their effect, and he'd put on some weight
again, though he was still a lot thinner than he'd been before he got
sick. He looked tireder than Leo liked to see, and something about his
eyes made the older man think he might be in pain. A headache, maybe;
he'd had a long evening. Leo wondered if he should have dropped by so
late, but he'd promised Donna he'd make it, and he hadn't wanted to
let the opportunity go by. With Leo's crazy schedule and Josh still at
home on sick leave, Leo wasn't getting to see his deputy as often as
he liked. He still felt terrible about having missed what was
happening with Josh, and was feeling a need to check in frequently to
make sure he didn't overlook anything else.

It wasn't until he was settled in a chair, sipping the coffee Donna
had brought in, that Leo noticed the object that filled the entire end
of Josh's living room by the window. "When did you get a piano, Josh?"

"Two days ago. My mother sent it up from Florida."

"It's a nice one."

"Yeah. I think she's really slipped a gear this time."

"Never diss your own mother, Josh. She's worried about you, and she
doesn't like your being so far away."

"Yeah, I know, but sending a large, bulky object I can't use that
fills up half my apartment? That's definitely a sign of serious
gear-slippage."

"What do you mean, you can't use it? You play, don't you?"

"Me? Are you nuts?"

"You used to, didn't you?"

"Gear-slippage, Leo, definite gear-slippage. You want to watch that;
you'll end up in a retirement village in West Palm Beach, along with
my mother. The next step's a locked ward."

"I'm sure I remember something-"

"Joanie, Leo," Josh said in a quieter voice. "You're thinking of Joanie."

Leo winced; he hadn't meant to remind Josh of his sister. He wished,
not for the first time, that he remembered more about Josh's
childhood, but he really didn't. He and Noah had been colleagues,
business friends who found each other's company congenial. They had
seen a lot of each other for a while-had golfed together; dined and
talked politics and played bridge at their clubs together; enjoyed a
drink together, until Leo's drinking had got out of hand-but he'd only
been to the Lymans' house a few times. He remembered a mischievous
little boy with a big grin and a mop of reddish-brown hair, and a
quiet, pretty girl with a mass of dark curls, a few years older. She'd
been talented, he remembered that. Yes, musical; now that he'd been
reminded of it, he could just recall her playing for them on the grand
piano in the living room-it was probably the same piano, he realized
suddenly-and Jenny saying afterwards that that girl was going to be
something someday. How sad. He remembered that Josh had tailed his
sister everywhere, pestering her for attention, and that she had been
surprisingly patient with him, motherly. He had a vague memory of Josh
sitting, uncharacteristically quiet, listening while she played for
the party. Other than that, nothing he could be sure of; the drink had
muddled a lot of his memories from that period, anyway, and then he
and Jenny had moved to Chicago and had fallen out of touch with the
Lymans, except for cards at Christmas-at the holidays, he corrected
himself. He remembered the shock with which they had learned about the
Lymans' tragedy, the fire and the pretty, talented girl's death. He
hadn't seen Josh again until he was grown up, a young man fresh out of
law school, working on the Hill. So much he didn't know.



Part 2-


Sam was sitting on the plane, wishing he wasn't. Wishing he could stay
another day or two in D.C., wishing he'd had more time to talk to
Josh. He was still shocked by his friend's appearance, and more
shocked by the way everyone else had been saying how good Josh was
looking, how much better than he'd been a month before. What was the
matter with them all? Apparently they hadn't known what was happening
with Josh until he had more or less collapsed at the White House. In
the Residence. After weeks of late nights and virtually no food, after
months of gut-wrenching chemotherapy. Sam still didn't understand it;
how could they not have noticed? Or, having noticed-as Toby,
apparently, actually had-how could they have kept quiet and said
nothing, done nothing? You should have been there, Sam thought. Your
best friend and you're never there when he needs you. He'd never
really forgiven himself for not having gone looking for Josh when he
was shot, at Rosslyn. If it hadn't been for Toby . . . . But this time
Toby had seen, and done nothing. It made Sam furious. What had he been
thinking? What had any of them been thinking? The hair loss alone
should have given the game away, but apparently they'd all gone around
believing some story Josh had spun about a hot new girlfriend and a
hip new look, or a hip new girlfriend and a hot new look, or some
nonsense like that. Didn't any of them actually know Josh? Even Donna.
Though Sam wasn't entirely surprised there; he could pretty much guess
how that had come about. Josh would have started talking about the
girlfriend before his hair fell out, or he shaved it, or whatever had
happened, long before he'd started looking ill, and Donna would have
been so fixated on what she thought he was doing that she'd have been
blinded to what he really was doing. Josh would have been just the
same if it had been her. But they seemed to be past all that; it was
obvious that they were together now. At last. It was a little hard to
process, actually; Sam had somehow pictured Josh and Donna dancing
circles around each other for all eternity, but he was glad it had
finally happened, and just when Josh really needed someone, too. Glad,
and, if he really looked in his heart, a little sad too, just a
little. He'd always known it wasn't going to happen, but a part of him
had never quite stopped wishing . . . .

* * *

Toby sat in his battered old armchair, savoring the end of a cigar.
He'd wanted one all evening, but hadn't been about to light up in
Josh's apartment. Josh had never been crazy about the smell. Normally
they both ignored that, and Toby puffed away to his heart's content,
but he didn't know how it might affect Josh in his present condition,
and he didn't want to be responsible for making the man feel any
sicker than he already did. Toby felt quite responsible enough.

He was having a hard time with that. Had been having a hard time with
it ever since that day a month ago when Leo had come into Senior Staff
and told him and C.J. and Will that the President had ordered Josh to
take sick leave. Had told them that Josh had been too weak to leave
the Residence after the party Friday evening, and had had to spend the
night there. Had told them about the diagnosis, the chemo and the side
effects, the missed meals and lack of sleep. The others had been so
shocked, so angry with themselves for not having noticed, not having
understood. Toby had been angry with himself for having noticed and
understood, but not having done what, apparently, Josh had needed
done.

He hadn't had the whole picture, of course. He'd known Josh had
cancer-had seen the signs, guessed it, talked to him about it-but he'd
thought Josh was under the care of a doctor, probably a whole team of
doctors, and that the weight loss was being monitored and managed.
He'd said as much to Leo after the others had left, that morning, and
Leo had fixed him with one of those penetrating stares the man
specialized in, and told him quietly that Josh had discontinued
treatment several weeks before and hadn't seen a physician since. Toby
had felt his gut drop out, and a wave of anger wash over him that he
hadn't been able to get his head above since. Anger at Josh, for doing
something so stupid. Anger at himself.

He hadn't wanted to have to deal with what he knew. Josh had demanded
that he keep quiet about it, and he had been only too willing to
oblige. It had seemed like the right thing to do at the time-to give
the man the privacy and dignity he himself would have wanted if he
were the one who'd been sick. And then, when Donna had come along and
talked to him about her fight with Josh, he'd been able to have it
both ways: to tell someone who, he'd convinced himself, would take
care of anything that needed taking care of, and yet not have to go to
Leo and bring the thing right out into the open, which he knew would
infuriate Josh. The two men were different in so many ways, but he
knew his colleague-his friend; why did he always avoid the word?-well
enough to know they were alike in that one: for all that Josh could be
so outrageously gregarious, he was at the core someone who guarded
himself and his privacy fiercely. The difference, of course, which
Toby hadn't considered at the time, was that Toby knew how to look
after himself. Yes, he drank too much, once in a while; yes, he smoked
cigars, on occasion; yes, his family life was a shambles. But he did
what he had to do to keep himself relatively sane and healthy. Josh
didn't. Toby remembered that December after the shooting, when he'd
seen the changes in Josh, when he'd known something was wrong but
hadn't wanted to intrude and hadn't done anything, and the man hadn't
talked to anyone about what was happening to him but had cracked under
the strain of it and put his hand through a window. This was the same
sort of thing all over again.

Toby was mortified that he, Toby Ziegler, had been that stupid twice.
He'd always liked to think he was someone who learned from his
mistakes, though God knows, he hadn't learned with Andie. That was a
mess-that whole absurd, expensive, embarrassing business about the
house; the ring he'd worn all these years; the children, my God, the
children. He put the cigar down suddenly, and sat, his hands empty and
useless, thinking about Huck and Molly and Andie. And his father,
wanting so much to see his grandchildren. And Josh, forcing him to
talk to his father again when it was the last thing on earth he'd
wanted to do; Josh opening himself up in what was, Toby had recognized
even at the time, an extraordinary gesture from a private man, to try
to convince his friend that family mattered more than anything. And
Sam-his deputy once, almost his younger brother-who had been so angry
with him this evening, in that tight-lipped, buttoned-down way Toby
had almost forgotten, but recognized immediately when he saw it. And
Josh, lying on the pavement at Rosslyn, his head in Toby's arms,
coughing and choking on his own blood. And C.J., her long sexy legs
dangling from the piano, her sultry voice singing old show tunes and
torch songs. And Danny, coming at her invitation, watching her all
evening, going off in her car at the end of the night. And Andie
again, and the children. And Josh. And Josh. And Josh.

* * *

C.J.'s feet ached; it was those damn Manolo Blahniks she hadn't been
able to resist wearing. They made her legs look terrific, and she had
wanted Danny to notice her legs. He had. Toby had, too, but that was
Toby; it was Danny she'd been thinking about tonight. Useful thoughts,
very useful thoughts; thoughts that had led to a variety of highly
pleasurable activities, followed by his lying snoring in her bed right
now. The snoring wasn't very loud-it was quite gentle, really-but it
was enough to keep her awake and thinking about her feet, and other
things. Maybe she'd take a bath. She got up and crossed the room,
hissing at the pain in her heels and toes. She really had to stop
wearing those shoes. Though if they'd helped with her legs and Danny,
they'd been worth it; he'd known exactly what to do to make her feel
good, and she'd needed to feel good tonight. For a little while she'd
felt great, everywhere except her feet, and even they hadn't been so
bad when he was working on them. She wondered if Danny always snored,
or only when he'd had as much to drink as he had tonight. Most men
would be useless after that much alcohol, but it hadn't affected
Danny's performance at all. Journalists. And press secretaries, she
thought, smiling a little; they were two of a kind. She was going to
have a hell of a head in the morning. She didn't care. She'd needed
something to make her feel good tonight; she was willing to pay for it
tomorrow.

She started the water pouring in her bath, shook in some scented
salts, and sat on the john waiting for the tub to fill. Her thoughts
turned back to the party, and Josh. He'd been looking better than the
last time she'd seen him, but by the end of the evening . . . . She'd
been the first to notice the expression on his face-well, the first
besides Donna, who had come up and whispered to her just seconds after
she'd had the idea herself-and she'd helped start the wind-down,
moving around the room and telling everyone quietly that it was time
to clear out and let Josh get some rest. Knowing she'd noticed tonight
was a little comfort, but not much. She still couldn't believe she
hadn't seen how sick he was a month ago. Two months, three or four
months, she spat at herself. What the hell were you thinking, Claudia
Jean? You actually bought that story about the haircut and the
girlfriend? You thought something was wrong, you know you did; that's
why you kept asking him if he was all right. You've known Josh for
years; why did you ever think he'd tell you the truth about something
like that? She didn't really have an answer, except the faint plea
that she'd been insanely busy, and that her father was taking up most
of what spare time and attention she had, and that she'd figured that,
if anything was really wrong with Josh, Donna would know about it.

But Donna hadn't known, and they could have lost him. Might lose him
still; he was looking better, but who could know what the cancer was
doing inside him? That was what made it such a terrifying disease; you
could beat it for a while, seem perfectly healthy for a few months, a
year, lots of years-and then it could come back and kill you in no
time at all. Or not; lots of people beat it and never heard from it
again. But how did you stop worrying, once that horrible thing had
wormed its way into a friend's body?

Such a good friend. More than a friend, really; in many ways she was
closer to Josh than to her own brothers, who knew nothing about the
work she did, twenty hours a day sometimes, and cared less, though
they cared about her, of course, and she about them, in a
not-very-absorbing sort of way. Josh-maddening, indispensable Josh-was
the one she turned to when she really needed a brother. Though she
knew, if she was being entirely honest with herself, that "brother"
and "sister" didn't really account for their whole relationship; there
had always been a touch of something else between them, something
she'd never cared to examine very closely, because the likelihood of
its leading to anything other than misery was so slim. She knew Josh
felt it, too; she could tell, by the way his eyes danced sometimes
when he teased her; the warmth of his hugs, one-armed or otherwise;
the comments he made about her body. But there'd always been a lot
more of that between him and Donna.

Which was fine with C.J.; Donna had a lot more patience with his
faults than she had. Too much patience, C.J. had often thought, though
she knew the younger woman was more than capable of standing up to
him, too. It was good that they finally seemed to have gotten
together; she was glad Josh had someone with him while he was going
through all this, and glad Donna didn't have to watch from the
sidelines. C.J. knew how hard that had been for her when he'd been
shot. Donna had done a lot then-C.J. smiled, remembering The Rules-but
there'd been limits neither of them had felt able to cross. She
wondered how it would all pan out when Josh came back to work and
started giving Donna orders again, but she thought they could find a
way around whatever difficulties might crop up. If they had to they
could always transfer Donna to another job in the White House or the
OEOB; there were always openings, or they could create a job if need
be. That might be the best thing anyway. It was obvious that she
wasn't going to file a sex-harassment complaint-the only PR issue C.J.
had ever worried about there, since a consensual relationship between
the deputy chief of staff and his assistant was unlikely to interest
anyone else in Washington very much-but she was capable of doing more
than she did in her present job, and might thrive in a different
position as long as she had Josh to herself at home. In any case, they
didn't have to worry about that yet; it could wait for when Josh came
back to work.

When Josh came back to work. When. When. She had to keep thinking
that; she couldn't let herself stray into the other word. Into "if."
She couldn't keep it at bay, though. It wasn't as if he'd beaten
anything yet. He was still in treatment-back in treatment, she
reminded herself. Leo had told her privately about Josh dropping out
of his treatments during the education bill thing. The thought made
her sick to her stomach. She couldn't really imagine what kind of dark
place he must have been in to have done something like that, and she
didn't want to imagine it. It was almost more unbearable than the
"ifs." She turned the water off and sank into the bath, letting the
warmth and the scent soak into her, deliberately turning her mind away
from the thoughts about Josh that kept trying to claim it. Danny, she
thought to herself; I'm going to think about Danny now. And me. And
Danny.

She was beautifully relaxed, her feet painless and comfortable at
last, when a strange bit of memory drifted into her half-asleep mind.
Josh, years ago, listening to Schubert's "Ave Maria" in his office
while everyone else was drinking wine and eating the President's chili
upstairs in the Residence. Josh telling her to listen to one
particular, gorgeous bit, and wondering whether you had to be crazy to
make something that great. She'd never forgotten what he'd told her
that night about the NSA card he'd been given that she hadn't, but
she'd forgotten that. How strange, she thought, sleepily. How unlike
the Josh they usually saw. Maybe . . . But she was too groggy with hot
water and bath salts and sleep and sex and gin and red wine to follow
the thought any further.

* * *

Donna lay wide awake beside Josh, who was sleeping quietly, for him.
It had been a good evening, she thought. He'd been so happy to see
everyone; there'd been lots of laughter, lots of mocking Republicans,
lots of talking up a storm. Even the piano had added to the fun:
they'd all enjoyed razzing Josh about it, and Sam's playing, bad
though it was, and C.J.'s singing. She just wished Josh hadn't looked
so worn out by the end of the evening. She was pretty sure he'd had a
bad headache before the crowd had left, though he wouldn't admit it
when she asked him. He was funny that way, she thought; he could whine
like a baby over a cold or some minor discomfort, but when something
was really wrong he got incredibly tight-lipped about it. He'd been
like that after Rosslyn; in the beginning, when the pain had been
horrible, he'd struggled not to let it show-not that any of them could
have missed it, she thought. Later, when he'd started to moan and
fuss, she'd known he was getting better. Though she'd realized, over
the years, that he hid quite a few things on a daily basis; he still
had lingering physical effects from the shooting, and some
psychological ones, too, but he hated for anyone to see them. And now
this. She knew there were a lot of people in the world who had worse
things to deal with, but it still didn't seem fair to her. No one else
she knew personally had had as much stuff thrown at him in his life as
Josh had. Not even Charlie, who had had his share of rough times and
tragedy, but had at least been able to dodge the bullets those sick,
bigoted boys had intended for him, and was still fit and healthy.

She sometimes wondered if it wasn't that sense of something hurting in
Josh that drew her to him, even more than his intelligence and energy,
his odd moments of tenderness, his undeniable charm. Even before the
shooting and the PTSD, it had been there. His father dying-she'd never
forget the way he'd frozen in the middle of a gesture and had hung
there, suspended, almost, in mid-motion, as he'd tried to process what
she'd told him, while everyone else was going wild with joy over their
big win, and "Celebration" boomed out of the speakers around them. Or
the expression on his face afterwards, when it had begun to sink in.
She'd always hated herself for having dropped that on him just when he
was so happy and so entitled to his happiness, even though she knew
she hadn't really had a choice. It would have been too grotesque to
grab his hands and dance with him, then tell him later.

But it wasn't just his father's death that had made him seem so
vulnerable to her. She remembered the slow, bits-and-pieces way she'd
found out about his sister. She hadn't even known he'd had a sister
till months after she started working for him. Then one day on the
campaign trail he'd tossed his wallet at her and told her to use his
credit card to order them some pizza. His wallet was a disaster area;
she'd had to take half the stuff out just to find the card, and while
she was waiting on the phone she'd started to clean it out and
organize it. The wallet itself was torn and battered, but it must have
been a good one once, she'd realized, to have lasted so long; judging
from what she found in it, it couldn't have been less than twenty
years old. Or maybe he was one of those men who just grabbed
everything out of one wallet and shoved it into another without
looking at it, when the old one finally collapsed and he was forced to
make a change. In either case, cleaning it out made Donna feel like an
archaeologist digging down through layers of the life of Josh. There
was a five-year-old dry-cleaning receipt; the return half of an Amway
ticket from New York to Washington, dated November 24, 1991; and
twenty pounds sterling in American Express checks, suggesting to Donna
some backpacking tour of Europe during his college days. And tucked
into one of those out-of-the-way pockets where everything gets
forgotten, sandwiched between his old Harvard student i.d. and a
Connecticut library card that had expired in 1978, she'd found a
picture of a girl. The photograph had been folded and creased; one
corner was missing, and it looked like coffee had been spilled on it a
hundred years ago, but you could still see the girl's face quite
clearly: she was very pretty, with long, curly dark hair and a bright
smile. She looked about fourteen. Donna had teased him about it while
they were eating the pizza. "So, I found your first love." "What?"
Josh had looked startled. "Your first love. Her picture was in your
wallet. At least, I hope she was your first love and not a more recent
one, because she definitely looks underage." "What are you talking
about?" Josh had demanded, around a mouthful of pepperoni and Italian
sausage. She'd pushed the photograph across the desk at him; they were
eating in his makeshift office in the local campaign headquarters,
somewhere in Pennsylvania. He'd wiped his fingers on his jeans, picked
it up, and gone very still when he looked at it. "I didn't realize I
still had that," he'd said, softly. "She's very pretty," Donna had
said, still in teasing mode, "but a bit young for you now, don't you
think?" "It's my sister," Josh had said, opening the desk drawer and
slipping the photo inside. "I didn't know you have a sister. Where
does she live?" He'd picked up his beer and studied it for a minute,
as if important polling data might be written in the small print on
the label, before he'd answered. "She doesn't. She died when we were
kids." He'd put the beer down without drinking it, stood up, and said,
"I need to talk to Leo about that thing tomorrow," walking out of the
room and leaving Donna staring after him, her mouth a little open, a
piece of pepperoni-and-sausage pizza in her hand.

After that she'd watched him carefully when people were talking about
their families or their childhoods, and realized how little he had to
say about his own. He wasn't alone in that-Toby was, if anything, even
more reticent-but it struck her differently now. After he'd left for
his father's funeral, she'd overheard C.J. asking Leo whether Josh had
any brothers or sisters. "There was a sister, Joanie. She was a few
years older than Josh. She died when she was fourteen or fifteen."
"She died? How sad. What happened?" "There was a fire. The children
were home alone. He got out; she didn't." "How horrible." "Yes, it
was. I don't think he's ever forgiven himself." "For what? It couldn't
have been his fault, could it? How old was he?" "Eleven, I think, or
twelve. I don't know the details, but no, I don't think it could have
been his fault." "What did you mean then, he's never forgiven himself?
What would he have to forgive himself for?" "For living, I guess."
They'd both been quiet, then, and Donna had shrunk back against her
seat in the bus-they were on their way to the airport, to go to
California-hoping they wouldn't realize she'd been listening.

Leo's comment about Josh had been confirmed for her a year or so later
by Josh himself. They'd been in the White House a few months, and the
President had invited everyone up to the Residence for chili one
night. Donna had found the whole evening a little surreal; she hadn't
really gotten used to their being in the White House yet, had only
been in the Residence once before, and had never, in her entire life,
expected to eat chili that had been personally prepared for her by the
President of the United States. She'd had a good time-Bonnie and
Ginger had been there, Cathy, and Mrs. Landingham-but for the first
half of the evening she'd kept glancing at the door, wondering what
was keeping Josh downstairs so long and when he was going to get
there. He'd finally arrived, in a very strange mood that she couldn't
place at all, and had ended up drinking quite a lot of wine. She'd cut
him off before he made an ass of himself in front of the President,
but he must have gone on to a bar with Toby and Sam afterwards,
because he'd shown up at her apartment at three in the morning, very
drunk. He'd kicked at her roommate's cats and sat on her couch and
told her there was something he had to tell her that he couldn't tell
her, he wasn't supposed to tell her, so he wouldn't tell her, but she
didn't have to worry that he was going to get into Air Force One and
leave her to fend for herself when the bomb dropped or someone broke a
bottle of smallpox virus in the middle of the Mall. "I told them I
w-wouldn't do it, Donna, so y'don' have t' worry; I'll be here w'you
when it h-happens. I'm not leavin' you alone. I'm not gonna run out
o'th'house again, I'm n-not. They can't make me, Donna, they can't. I
said I wouldn' do it, an' I won't. I'm not gonna let you burn alone. I
won't. I won't." She'd been too busy pulling the cats off him-they
weren't the kind of cats you could kick at without paying for it-and
trying to calm him down to pay much attention to what he was saying at
the time. It was only later, when he'd fallen asleep on the couch and
she was trying to get back to sleep herself, that she realized what
he'd been talking about. Her heart had twisted inside her, and she'd
actually cried a little-for Joanie, for Josh, for herself. Because, if
she hadn't already been in love with him, that would have done it for
her. How could you hold out against a man like that, no matter how
difficult he might be ninety percent of the time?

And now, after all these years, she had him. It wasn't just her with a
thing about her boss anymore; he wanted her, too; in fact, it seemed
he'd wanted her as long as she'd wanted him. She'd certainly wondered,
at times, if he didn't, but she'd never felt sure enough to risk what
she had, when she was so certain to lose it all, including her job, in
the most humiliating way possible if she were wrong. She hadn't really
considered carefully enough that he might be suffering under similar
constraints-worse ones, really, since most sexual-harassment
regulation was aimed at the boss. She'd known that, of course, in an
abstract way, but he was so much older and more experienced than she
was, and she was so used to taking direction from him at work, that
she'd always assumed he would take the lead romantically, too, if he
was really interested in her. She'd been used to thinking she was
being way too obvious; apparently she hadn't been obvious enough, or
at least not consistently obvious enough, for Josh to feel safe doing
anything. It still amazed her that she had been the one to kiss him
first. She'd never thought she'd do that; she was a perfectly
liberated woman, she thought, but she'd still expected things to start
with the guy, not with her. That was one outmoded idea she was glad
she'd tossed out the window; if all she'd done after he gave her that
watch had been to hug him, she was sure they'd still be going on
exactly the way they had for the past six or seven years. But she had
kissed him, and he'd kissed back, and now at last he was hers.

He was worth having, there was no question in her mind about that.
He'd been the one to doubt it, which had taken her completely by
surprise. The famous Lyman ego that had annoyed her so often was
nowhere to be seen. She knew him intimately enough now to suspect
that, where women were concerned, it had always been largely bravado,
though it was hard to be sure, when his self-confidence had been
stripped from him by the physical changes brought on by the cancer and
the chemotherapy. "You couldn't possibly want to," he'd said, in a
choked sort of voice, when she'd started running her hands over his
body and tugging on his belt buckle, back in his apartment after that
first crazy kiss at the Starbucks on Wisconsin Avenue. They were in
his living room; he'd been telling her about the cancer and the
treatments, all the things he'd tried to hide from her for so long.
"What are you talking about?" she'd demanded, pausing for a second and
wondering if there was any way she could have misread his interest in
her. With her hands where they were she had what seemed like
rock-solid evidence that she hadn't. He'd pulled himself away from her
a little. "I know what I look like, Donna," he'd said, his voice
cracking, holding his hands out, helplessly, and gesturing up and down
his body. "You couldn't-I don't want you to feel you have to-I can't
stand to think of you just-" "Just what, Josh?" She'd felt a wave of
anger rising in her, not at him, but at what had happened to him to
make him feel like that. She wanted to force him to say it out loud,
so she could slap the idea out of bounds for once and for all. He'd
looked at her wildly. "Just-pretending-because of what I told you.
Because you feel sorry for me." "Damn it, Josh," she'd said, letting
go of his belt and grabbing his face with both her hands, the way she
had on the street. "I told you. I love you. I. Love. You. I've wanted
you for years, and I want you now. I know I said horrible things to
you about what you look like, but it was because I thought you were
seeing somebody else and I was jealous. I was jealous, Josh. I want
you, I've always wanted you, and I don't give a damn whether you have
hair or not, or how much you weigh or what shape you're in, you're
still you, and I just want you, and if you don't let me have you right
now I'm probably going to explode, and then you'll have to get in
those professional cleaners who go into contaminated sites and wear
plastic suits and space boots and oxygen tanks and face masks, so they
can scrape little bits of me off the walls and ceiling, and you'll
have to explain to Leo and the President and everybody what happened
to me and why I'm not at work on Monday morning. C.J., Josh, you'll
have to explain it to C.J., and she'll probably break your kneecaps,
and then where will you be?" He was half-laughing and half-sobbing as
he pulled her to him, though his face stayed dry. And what followed
afterwards left her with absolutely nothing to complain about at all.

Or almost nothing. If his body wasn't what it had been, he had the
skill and the passion to make up for it; physically she'd been left
blissful, many times over. It hadn't just been a first-night thing,
either: if anything the sex had gotten better, as he'd figured out
more about exactly what suited her. And he was obviously putting a
great deal of energy and ingenuity into making sure he wasn't leaving
anything out. There was just one thing he couldn't seem to do. He
could touch her and make her feel wonderful; he could hold her and
make her sure he needed her; he could tell her she was sweet and funny
and beautiful and brilliant, and that he'd never wanted anyone like
he'd wanted her since he'd first seen her, and make her believe it.
But he couldn't say the same words to her that she'd said to him. She
told herself he just wasn't that kind of guy; she told herself she'd
never thought she'd get this much from him; she told herself it didn't
matter. But it did. She wanted to hear him say it. She thought he
wanted to-she'd see him looking at her sometimes, his face working,
his eyes very bright, and she'd think he'd be about to say it, but
instead he'd bury his face in her hair and start kissing her neck, or
he'd pick up her hand and run his tongue over the inside of her wrist,
and the moment would pass. Nothing she knew about him, not even his
sister's death, really seemed to explain it. She didn't think he'd
ever said it to anybody else; she thought that, if he ever said it to
anybody, it would be to her. But she couldn't help wondering what it
would take to get it out of him, and what on earth had happened to him
to make three simple words so hard for him to say.

As she was drifting off to sleep, she found herself thinking again
about the piano. Such a very strange thing for his mother to do. Donna
hadn't seen Josh's mother since the shooting; she didn't like travel,
and avoided it whenever possible. Even now, with Josh so sick, she was
making excuses not to have to come up, although Leo had said she was
feeling terrible about not seeing him, too. She seemed to get on best
when she was someplace she knew, Josh said; where she could walk on
the beach and paint her pictures and get her groceries delivered from
the store she always used. He'd been surprised that she'd moved at
all, but she and Noah had owned the house in West Palm Beach and
wintered there for years, so it hadn't been much of a change; in fact,
it had eliminated the twice-yearly travel. People got odd that way as
they got older, of course, and, if Josh was to be believed, she'd
always been a little whacky, in the nicest possible way. Fey, Donna
thought; artistic and charming and fey. Donna had been struck, when
she met her, by the resemblance to her daughter's picture, though that
might have been only physical. Josh obviously took after his father.
Donna wondered if Mrs. Lyman really might be slipping a gear or two.
It was hard to explain the piano any other way.



Part 3--


 "Hey, Donna. How's it going?"

"Fine, thanks, C.J. How about you?"

"Oh, fine. How's Josh?"

"He's fine, C.J. He really enjoyed seeing everybody the other
night-thanks for coming over."

"Thanks for thinking of it. I had a great time."

"Yeah, me too. We hadn't had the whole gang together in so long."

"It was wonderful to see Sam."

"And Danny."

"Donna?"

"Yeah, C.J.?"

"How is he really?"

"He's okay."

"He didn't look that good by the end of the evening."

"He was pretty tired. He does get headaches. And he still throws up
sometimes, but not nearly as often. He's really doing a lot better on
these new drugs."

"Really? That's good. He does seem to have gained some weight back."

"The new drugs aren't as hard on his stomach. Plus he's getting a lot
more rest, and the Bartlets have been amazing about the food."

"Manuel's cooking every day-Josh is a lucky guy."

"Yeah."

"Yeah. Right. The headaches-they're really the main side-effect, now?"

"I think so. I-I don't really know, C.J. He doesn't talk about it. I
looked these drugs up on the internet when he started on them, and
they can do a lot of things to you, scary things. But there's been
nothing I can see so far, except the headaches, and sometimes the
nausea, and he was having those before."

"Scary things, you said? What kind of scary things?"

"These drugs do stuff to the nervous system. Some people get numbness
in their hands and feet. Some people get pains shooting all over their
body, really bad pains. That's some of it."

"What else?"

"Partial paralysis, deafness, blindness."

"God."

"It doesn't happen very often. And it's usually temporary."

"Usually?"

"Usually. It's pretty rare."

"Donna-"

"Really, C.J., he's okay. It's just that he gets tired easily, and the
headaches."

"Yeah. That's good, I guess."

"Yes, it is."

"Donna?"

"Yes, C.J.?"

"This whole thing is such total shit, isn't it? I hate it."

"Me too."

* * *

"Josh?"

"Yeah, Donna?"

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah, Donna."

"You sure?"

"Sure. I'm sure."

* * *

"Josh?"

"Yeah, Donna?"

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah."

"Are you sure?"

"Sure."

"You're not, are you?"

"Sure, I'm sure. I'm okay."

"Is it your head again?"

"A bit."

"Have you taken anything for it?"

"It really doesn't help."

"Is there anything I can do?"

"Nah, don't worry about it. I'll be okay. Tell me about what happened
at work today."

"Won't it make your head hurt more?"

"I like your voice. It's soothing. And if you come over here, there
are other things about you I like a lot, too."

"Well, Peterson is really giving us a hard time about S85 . . ."

* * *

"Josh?"

"Yeah, Donna?"

"If that gets much worse, I think we should take you in."

"No thanks, Donna."

"Come on, Josh, they've got stronger painkillers at the hospital.
They've got doctors who can write you prescriptions for stronger
painkillers."

"I've tried just about everything they can prescribe."

"Well, they could give you something there, then. Just for tonight.
Just so you get a little relief."

"I'm fine."

"You're not!"

"Well, I'm trying to be."

"I know you are, sweetheart, but that head is killing you."

"It'll go away in a bit."

"Let me take you in, Josh."

"No thanks."

"Why, Josh?"

"Just-no."

"Why not?"

"I just don't want to."

"Please, Josh. I hate to see you like this."

"Donna-"

"What, Josh?"

"Donna, you know what the numbers are, don't you?"

"Josh?"

"You know there's a better-than-even chance that before the year's out
I'm going to end up in that hospital on a morphine drip. And if I do,
I won't be coming out."

"Josh-"

"I'd just like to spend as much time as possible out here first, you know?"

"Oh Josh."

"I'll be okay."

"You will, sweetheart. You have to be. You will."

* * *

Josh moved restlessly about the apartment, trying to get away from the
pain in his head. He had the idea that if he just kept moving, sooner
or later he'd outpace it. And moving around gave him something else to
think about. If he just kept on his feet, if he just kept going,
sooner or later it would stop. It always did.

These headaches weren't like the ones he'd had with the earlier drugs.
Those had been ever-present, but fairly low-grade most of the time,
though they'd certainly been capable of working themselves up into
ugly migraines complete with dancing spots before the eyes. These were
different. They came and went for no apparent reason at all, and when
they came, the pain was like nothing he'd ever had in his head before.
And they were getting worse. He was glad Donna was still at work; he
couldn't have kept still and pretended to listen to her talking,
today. He knew she knew he wasn't really following what she said when
he did that, but the pretense helped him, and he hoped it helped her a
little, too. He knew how hard all this was on her.

That bothered him, a lot. None of this was the way it should have
been, the way he'd pictured it in the odd moments when he used to let
himself really go and dream about how things might be if he and Donna
didn't have to work together. Most of the time he hadn't thought about
it-he was good at that, he'd had a lot of practice not thinking about
things over the years-but sometimes he hadn't been able to help
himself, and then he'd thought about what he'd do when they were
finished at the White House and Donna wasn't his assistant any more.
It had always been a difficult fantasy to work out in any detail,
because he'd never really been able to imagine himself in his next
job, with a different assistant. But sometimes he'd ignore that side
of things, and just think about himself with Donna. He'd planned it
all out-how he would ask her out the first time, how he would woo her,
how he'd convince her that he could be more than just her uptight,
difficult, pain-in-the-ass, jackass boss. He'd thought about how he'd
kiss her the first time; he'd thought about how he'd do everything
with her the first time. And absolutely none of his fantasies had ever
involved inflicting on her a bald, emaciated, possibly dying man with
nausea and violent head pains. Whenever he thought about what he was
doing to her life, he felt a wave of self-disgust wash over him that
sometimes left him being physically sick. Though it was always hard to
tell what was the result of the drugs and what was purely
psychological in origin, these days.

Thinking about it now, he had to stop pacing and grab onto the back of
the couch to steady himself. He swallowed hard. He thought he might be
going to be sick-he'd better get to the bathroom-but when he started
to move, the pain cracked through his head like a flash of lightening,
blinding him for a minute. He hung onto the couch, breathing heavily,
trying to stay in control. It cracked again, and he groaned; he
couldn't help himself. This was the worst it had ever been. Another
searing flash, and he was doubled over. Another, and he was on his
knees. And then an explosion that seemed to go on and on, jerking
sounds out of him that he didn't want to make. And then, at last, it
stopped, and there was just the sound of his ragged breathing and his
racing, pounding heart.

* * *

Donna fussed at the traffic all the way home. She'd run late at work
tonight-with Josh away, there was twice as much to do, trying to keep
the various people who were covering for him on track-and then there'd
been an accident on the bridge at Rock Creek, backing up the cars for
blocks. It was with a sigh of relief that she finally pulled her car
into the second parking place behind Josh's townhouse. Normally it was
taken by Josh's tenants in the apartment upstairs, but the new ones
had just moved to the city and didn't have a car yet, so Donna was
using their spot. Georgie, his tenant in the basement flat, didn't
need a place; he'd never owned a car. Donna smiled, thinking about
him; he was an odd old bird, but she liked him, and she'd always been
grateful to him for having heard Josh break the window that Christmas
and having quite possibly stopped him from doing anything worse. She
didn't know Georgie's whole story, but she knew Josh let him have the
place for next to nothing, and that he took care of most of the odd
jobs and repairs around the house in return. He called himself "the
super," and was intensely proud of working for the White House Deputy
Chief of Staff and living in his house. Donna liked knowing there was
someone around when Josh was at home during the day, though Georgie
was a lot slower and deafer than he used to be. She wasn't sure he'd
hear a window breaking any more, especially when he had his t.v. on or
his record player going. He had an old-fashioned turntable and a big
collection of vinyl records, mostly classical, and sometimes lately
when he had a symphony or an opera on it had been so loud Josh had had
to go downstairs and ask him to turn it down a little. He always
stayed down there a long time, talking. "He's lonely," he'd say, when
she laughed at him about it. It was one of the things she loved him
for, she thought, as she climbed the stairs to the back door, that
sympathetic patience with a crockety old man. So unlike the impatience
and sarcastic mockery he was noted for at work.

She slipped her key in the lock and peered in through the window in
the door, frowning a little. The back windows were dark, which didn't
surprise her, but she could see clear through to the front of the
house here, and there were no lights on there, either. That was
strange. Maybe Josh had gone out for a walk. It wasn't like him not to
be back before she was, though, and she was later than usual tonight.

She dropped her things by the back door, and made her way to the
living room at the front, switching on lights and checking rooms as
she went. Maybe he'd fallen asleep. That must be it; he didn't usually
take a nap at this time of day, but his head had been so bad last
night he must have been worn out today. She'd checked with him during
the morning and after lunch, and he'd sounded okay, but probably by
the end of the afternoon . . . .

* * *

He heard her open the back door and come in. Heard her steps coming
through the house.

"Donna? Is that you?"

"Of course it's me, Josh. Let me get some lights on. Why are you
sitting in the dark?"

He could hear her footsteps as she crossed the room, the click of the
switch as she turned on the lamp beside the sofa.

She straightened, looked in the direction his voice had come from, and
tensed with alarm. He was sitting on the floor, his back against the
back of the couch. His face was white, his breathing was quick and
shallow, and he was trembling all over. "Josh? What's the matter?
What's wrong?"

In a voice she'd never heard before he said, "I can't see you, Donna.
I can't see anything. I can't see."



Part 4-


 Leo looked at his watch. It wasn't like Donna to be late. He'd been
asking her to come to Senior Staff ever since Josh went on sick leave,
so she'd be up to speed on what Josh's office needed to do that day.
It helped her help the various people who'd been called in to cover
for him, and it helped Leo make sure nothing had been forgotten. Leo
sighed. He really missed his deputy. Last week Josh had been begging
to be allowed to come back in, even if only for a couple of hours a
day. He'd been looking so much better that Leo had been tempted to let
him, but the President had been very clear about not letting Josh do
anything that might set back his recovery, even a little. And Leo had
been troubled by the look on Josh's face after the party the other
night. He wasn't sure Josh was really up for as much as he'd thought.
They'd just have to keep scrambling to cover for a while longer.

"We'll wait another minute," he was saying, when Margaret came in.
"There's a call for you on line 1, Leo." "Tell them to wait," he said,
impatiently. Really, sometimes he wondered about Margaret. She should
know by now that he didn't like to be interrupted during Senior Staff.
"It's Donna, Leo. She sounds upset."

Leo felt his heart skip a beat and then start racing as he reached for
the phone. "Donna? It's Leo. What is it? . . . You're where? What
happened? . . . Jesus. . . . Jesus. . . . Not at all? Nothing? . . . .
Jesus. Do they think it's temporary, or . . . ? They don't know? They
have to do more tests? Yes. Yes, I see. . . . Yes, of course. Of
course not. Don't worry about anything here, Donna; we'll take care of
it. Tell Josh not to worry, either. About work, I mean. How is he
feeling? Yes. Yes, of course, I can imagine. You think you'll be there
for a few hours? I'll tell Margaret to free up something in my
schedule so I can get over. . . . Tell Josh we're with him. I'm glad
you're there, Donna. Yes, all right, I'll talk to you later. Keep me
in touch, please, until I can get over there. Thanks, Donna. Take
care."

Leo put the receiver down carefully, and looked around the room at his
staff. The new faces, Josh's covers, looked curious or politely
concerned. Will looked anxious. C.J. and Toby both looked stricken.

"That was Donna," Leo said, unnecessarily. "She won't be in today.
Geoff, Frank, I'll have the pool send someone over, but you'll have to
work out the schedule between yourselves. We'll cut whatever we can;
I'm going to need to be out of the office for part of the afternoon."

"Leo," C.J. pleaded and Toby growled, almost in unison.

Leo looked from one to the other, holding each one's gaze in turn.
When he spoke, he seemed to be aware only of them.

"It's Josh," he said. "They're at the hospital, having tests done.
Something happened last night, and he can't see."

"He can't see?" "Josh?" "Do you mean his vision's gone blurry, or . . . ?"

"He can't see at all. He's gone completely blind."

* * *

"I want to see him, Leo."

"I'm not sure that's a good idea right now, Mr. President."

"Damn it, Leo; I'm not the President on this one. I'm just Jed, and
it's Josh, and I want to see him."

"You are the President, Mr. President, and I don't think he's ready to
see you yet. To talk to you, I mean. To have you see him."

"How can I let him know I care what's happening to him, if I don't see him?"

"I'm telling him, Mr. President. Or rather, Donna is; he doesn't want
me to be there, either. Or Toby or C.J. or anyone. Just Donna."

"Thank God for Donna."

"Yes, indeed."

* * *

Two weeks later, Donna had to force herself up the stairs to Josh's
apartment. She felt completely exhausted: wiped out, drained, empty.
It wasn't really a physical thing; she'd had plenty of sleep last
night, she'd eaten a decent breakfast and lunch, she'd worked a much
shorter day than usual. It was her emotions that were pulling her
apart, she knew that. She just didn't know what to do about it.

Being with Josh for the last two weeks was one of the hardest things
she'd ever had to do. It was harder than being with him in the
hospital after he'd been shot. It was harder than watching him try to
cope after he'd seen Stanley Keyworth and been told he had PTSD. It
was harder than finding out he had cancer. She thought it might even
have been harder than what had happened to her during college, though
that was a toss-up; she'd been young then, with no experience of hard
things to compare to, so that had made an indelible impression of
awfulness on her mind. She was pretty sure, though, that if someone
were suddenly to appear in front of her and offer her the choice of
reliving the college thing again now, as an adult, and having to
relive the last two weeks, she'd choose the former. She knew she would
if it meant she could change things for Josh, so he wouldn't have had
to go through this at all.

The thing about the shooting was that, after the first few days, they
had known he was going to recover. And although there had been some
setbacks, every day they had been able to see that he was getting
better. It had been the same way with the PTSD; by the time Josh had
had his defenses cracked open by Dr. Keyworth, it was obvious that he
was already starting to climb out of the dark hole the shooting had
dropped him into. You never really stopped having PTSD, but you could
get to a point where it didn't affect you very often, and where you
could control the effects when it did. Josh had worked his way to that
point quite steadily, though Donna knew it had been anything but easy
at times. Even the cancer-once she had got over the shock of it, and
once Josh had started talking to her again, she'd been able to
convince herself that, no matter what the statistics were, Josh was
going to get better. All they had to do was to keep going and get
through the chemo, and everything would get easier. It had even seemed
as if things were getting better faster than they could have hoped,
when his oncologist had switched him to the new drugs and the initial
effects had been so much less difficult for him than what he'd been
through on the old ones. And Josh himself had seemed so buoyed up,
ever since that afternoon after the President's party, when he'd given
her her beautiful watch, and they'd finally thrown away their
inhibitions and become lovers. That business the other night, with him
talking about going into the hospital and not coming out, had startled
her; she hadn't realized he was still having dark moments like that.
Except for his doubts about being attractive enough for her in his
present condition, he'd been so cheerful and optimistic around her, so
much like his old self. It was too easy to forget how good Josh was at
hiding things, at covering himself.

He hadn't been able to cover a lot for the past two weeks, though. He
didn't say much; he didn't complain; and he certainly didn't break
down. But Donna thought she'd never seen him closer to it. His
emotions were written all over his face: he was obviously shattered,
devastated. And who wouldn't be, she thought, angrily. Who wouldn't
be?

After all the tests had been done, no one was any closer to being able
to tell them exactly what had happened or what he could expect. There
was some neurological damage, clearly, but it might repair itself. Or
it might not. The shooting pain was a common side-effect of the drugs
he'd been taking. The blindness was a far less common effect, as she
already knew. Sometimes it was temporary; sometimes it was permanent.
As for which it might be for Josh, either no one knew, or no one was
willing to say.

The HMO had promised to dispatch an OT as soon as possible. Donna
hadn't been sure at first what an OT was, but it turned out to be an
Occupational Therapist, a pert, petite blonde whom Donna had disliked
immediately-not out of any sense of jealousy, but simply out of
distaste for the woman's manner, which was hearty and patronizing. Her
name was Briany. Donna thought she treated Josh like a very small
child. "Come along then! Stand up straight! We don't want everyone
thinking you don't care about yourself, do we, just because you can't
see?" It was excruciating to listen to; she could only imagine what it
must feel like to Josh. He said nothing and did what he was told, but
everything about his face and manner indicated his defeat. He was
obviously completely humiliated when she suggested that he pee sitting
down: "You don't want to miss and make a mess for your girlfriend now,
do you? Not that that would be anything new, I'll bet," she'd added in
an aside to Donna, quite loud enough for him to hear. "Men never do
shoot straight, do they? If only their mothers would train them to sit
in the first place, we wouldn't have so much clean-up to have to do
after them!" "It's never been a problem," Donna had answered, in her
iciest voice, but the OT had been entirely unsquashed. Donna vented
her feelings about it to Leo later that day-"She's a nightmare! She's
going to destroy him,"-and Briany had been replaced by Chris, a round
young man from the Philippines, who was a definite improvement. He
gave both Josh and Donna some useful tips about coping with everyday
problems, like dressing and eating, and tried to talk to Josh about
politics. Josh answered his questions politely, but as briefly as
possible, without going off on any of his usual rants or tirades. He
seemed to be going through the motions people asked him to, but it was
obvious that he didn't really want to.

The HMO also dispatched a psychologist, but after the first two visits
Josh refused to see her again. He didn't want to talk to anyone else,
either. "What's the point, Donna?" he'd said wearily, when she'd urged
him to call the therapist Stanley Keyworth had recommended after the
PTSD diagnosis, or anyone else, for that matter. "I've seen enough
therapists to last me the rest of my life." When she wouldn't let it
go, he said, "They all do the same things, say the same things, try to
get you to tell them the same things. I was sick of it years ago. I
don't want to do it again now, and I don't see what the point would
be. I know what's the matter with me. There just isn't anything I can
do about it." Donna let it go. She didn't have a choice; you couldn't
force someone into counseling. Josh was being forced into too many
things as it was, anyway.

Leo had told Donna to take as much time for Josh as he needed, but
after the first few days Josh had told her quietly to go back to work.
"Leo needs you," he'd said. "I need it, too." "You want me to go?"
Donna had found it hard to hide the hurt in her voice. "You don't want
me here with you?" "Of course I want you here with me," he had
answered, a little roughly. "But I need you to go. I can't keep you
with me like a nursemaid, twenty-four hours a day. I've got to be able
to manage on my own." "But are you ready to?" she'd asked, doubtfully.
"Yeah," he'd said simply. "I've got to be. And besides, you need it,
too. You're going crazy, stuck in here with me all day."

He was right. That was the hardest thing for Donna about the whole
experience, admitting to herself that Josh was right: she was going
crazy, spending twenty-four hours a day with him. She'd been used to
spending twelve, fourteen, sometimes eighteen or twenty hours a day in
his company at work, but that had been different. For one thing, she
hadn't been with him every second. For another, there'd been work to
do. For a third, he'd been a completely different person to be around.
He'd been egotistical, sarcastic, loud, demanding, and infuriating,
and if someone had offered Donna a chance to spend twenty-four-hour
days with that Josh again, she'd have grabbed it and felt as if she'd
been given a one-way ticket to Hawaii. Any Josh would be better than
this one, sitting so quietly in a corner of the sofa, defeat written
all over his face and sounding in every word he said. His depression
was like a great, dark blanket spreading itself over the apartment,
suffocating both of them. Donna understood it and pitied it and wanted
to do anything she could to lift it off him, but the prospect of
escaping from it for a few hours a day filled her with a terrible joy.
She hated herself for wanting to get out, but she couldn't help it. So
she grabbed the excuses Josh was offering her, and went back to work
because Leo needed her and because Josh said he was ready to be alone,
even though she wasn't sure that he was ready at all.

But she was going crazy at work, too. No matter how much she wanted to
get out of the apartment, she'd no sooner close the door behind her
than she'd want to throw it open and rush back in again. She hated
leaving him, hated thinking of him sitting there, by himself, alone,
in the dark. He couldn't read, or write, or watch t.v. He couldn't
browse the internet. He couldn't go out for a walk: Chris was supposed
to start working with him on that, but they hadn't got to it yet, and
Donna had the impression that it was definitely going to take a while
before Josh was able to negotiate the sidewalks of Georgetown safely
on his own. And, other than the hour a day he spent with Chris, he
didn't want anyone to come over and be with him. He'd nixed the idea
of hiring any sort of daytime companion-"I don't need a nanny," he'd
said-and he declined his friends' requests to visit, politely but
firmly. He talked to them on the phone when they called, but when they
asked if they could come over he just said, "Maybe another time," and
nobody had the nerve to force the point. He didn't call them. He
didn't even call Donna; she called him, half-a-dozen times a day, but
he never tried to reach her when she was at work. He could have
listened to the t.v. or radio, or to any of the stack of books-on-tape
people had sent him, but she didn't think he did, or not for very
long; she never heard them playing in the background when she spoke to
him on the phone. She couldn't imagine what he did with himself all
day.

All she knew was that, when she got home, she'd reach down to hug him
where he was sitting on the sofa, and he'd pull her to him with a
desperation she'd never felt before. He'd wrap his arms around her so
tightly she thought her ribs were going to break, and bury his face in
hers. The sex that followed was more passionate than any she'd ever
had, or imagined having. But it was also sadder. He knew exactly what
to do to make her feel wonderful, and he did it again and again, in
every way imaginable, but he did it almost wordlessly. He'd been a
vocal lover before, witty and teasing, as well as noisy when he came.
Now he was so quiet it made her want to cry. And he didn't come. No
matter what he was doing, and no matter what she did to him in return,
he didn't come. Couldn't come. He was aroused enough, obviously turned
on; that wasn't the problem. She knew she wasn't the problem, either;
she was doing all the things that had worked with him before, and
everything else she could think of, but he just couldn't get to the
point of release. He didn't really seem to care. He'd just say, "It's
okay," or "Don't worry about it," pull himself away from her a little
and start working on her body in another way, trying to tease another
spasm of pleasure out of her, and usually succeeding. If she let him,
he'd keep it up for hours. She'd never thought it would be possible to
get tired of good sex, and this wasn't just good sex he was giving
her, it was great sex, amazing sex, but she was getting tired of it.
She wished he'd just stop and talk to her instead. But talking seemed
to be the last thing he wanted to do.

* * *

Josh heard the door click shut behind Donna, and felt his way from the
bedroom door, where he'd been standing when she said goodbye, to the
couch in the living room. He stretched himself out, and started
counting the minutes till she'd come back again. She was working short
days; she'd be home by five. It was seven-thirty. He knew that because
Leo had got him a clock that announced the time in a stiff, female
voice when he pushed a button on top. Five hundred and seventy minutes
to go. Chris came at 1:00 and stayed for an hour, which broke up the
wait a little. Not that Josh really cared; if Chris had offered to
stay longer, Josh would have declined. He didn't actually mind Chris,
but he didn't want him there, either. It was harder when someone was
there; you had to try to pay attention to what they were saying, had
to try to pretend to be all right. The only person he wanted was
Donna, and he simply had to wait five hundred and seventy minutes
before he could have her again.

He'd tried listening to the t.v. Normally he was compulsive about CNN
and C-Span, and he followed the major news shows whenever he could.
Now he couldn't bear them. If he couldn't be in that world, playing an
active role in it, helping to shape it, he couldn't stand to have to
think about it. And he didn't think he'd ever be in that world, that
way, again.

He'd tried listening to the radio, but the incessant blare of the ads
and the triviality of the lyrics in the popular songs got to him
quickly, and he hadn't bothered turning it on again. He could have
tuned into WGMS or WETA, the NPR station, but he wanted to hear
classical music even less than he wanted to hear the news. There was
too much political commentary on NPR, anyway; it set that same hungry
ache going in him that CNN and C-Span did. The cheerful roar of the
crowds on the sports broadcasts had a similar effect. His own CD's-a
lot of 60's and 70's pop and rock-touched off too many happy memories
for him to want to listen to them now. The books-on-tape were either
novels, which he couldn't care less about, or political biographies.
No matter where he turned, he bumped into the ghosts of his former
self. It was easier just to lie on the couch and count the minutes
till Donna's return.

He was practicing counting them out, sixty seconds at a time, trying
to get just the right pace and rhythm to match the clock. He'd been
working on it all week, and had got to the point where he could go for
fifteen minutes at a stretch and be pretty close to the time the
electronic woman's voice announced when he hit the button on the
clock. Four times an hour; he wouldn't let himself hit it more often
than that. There was something a little frightening about the idea of
pushing a button every few minutes, just to hear a mechanical voice.
He could easily imagine going over the edge, if he let himself, and
Donna coming home to find him mindlessly pushing the button up and
down, over and over, without stopping: "Five-o-three.
Five-o-three-and-two-seconds. Five-o-three-and-four-seconds.
Five-o-three-and-six-seconds . . ."

He was close enough to the edge as it was. He knew he shouldn't be
doing this; he knew he should be finding some constructive way to use
his time, not wasting it lying on his back, counting seconds and
minutes. Counting time. He laughed to himself, bitterly. He remembered
that day a couple of months ago when he'd decided he was going to buy
time. All the time he could get, he remembered thinking; whatever it
costs, it'll be worth it. Now he had time to burn, and nothing had
ever seemed more worthless to him. When he'd thought that, he'd
thought he'd be spending whatever time he got looking, and loving what
he saw. Looking at the sunlight falling through the yellow leaves.
Looking at Donna's hair. Looking at her face, her beautiful face, all
lit up with that spectacular smile. He'd been so struck by a sense of
light, that day, and he'd thought he'd be able to go on, surrounded by
that light, filled up by it. He'd been thinking the price he'd have to
pay for time would be pain, and he'd been willing to do that. It had
never crossed his mind that the price he'd end up paying might be the
light itself.

Ironically enough, the pain had mostly ended with that last burst in
his head. But the light was gone. And now the expensive watch he'd
bought himself, when the chemotherapy had really started to get bad,
was lying unused and useless in a drawer somewhere. It had been a kind
of promise to himself: yes, it is worth spending all this money on
this thing they say will last a lifetime; yes, I will be looking at
this when I'm an old man. Now he couldn't see it to read the time.
That had been the worst thing, that first day, when the pain in his
head stopped but the light didn't come back and he'd realized he
couldn't see: not being able to read his watch, not knowing how much
time had gone by, or how long he still had to wait until Donna came
back and found him. He'd been too confused and too frightened to move,
and even if he'd found his phone he wouldn't have been able to call
anyone: he'd been working on that since with Chris, and it was
surprisingly difficult, telling which key was which in the dark. But
he hadn't minded that as much as he'd minded not knowing the time.
That was another reason he was practicing counting out the seconds and
the minutes: he wanted to have the clock in his head, in case the
female voice stopped working and he was left alone in the dark again
with no idea what time it was. The horrible idea had occurred to him
that that might be what it was like to be dead: to be alone in the
dark, conscious, but with no way to keep track of the time passing,
and no end to the time that would pass. It was the first time he'd
really been afraid of dying; before he'd always thought it would just
mean an end to the pain. Now the thought of it made his stomach churn
and his whole body shake. Which was another good thing about counting
out the seconds: if you didn't want to lose track of them, you
couldn't stop to think. He'd lost track now, so he hit the button on
the clock to start over again. Seven-forty-two. Five hundred and
fifty-eight minutes to go.

But six or seven minutes later, his mind wandered off again. It was
hard to keep it focused on the numbers when there was so much else to
think about. Especially Donna. Beautiful Donna. So beautiful Donna,
that he might never see again. Donna, loving, giving Donna, that he
was taking too much from when he couldn't give her anything back in
return. Only sex, for what that was worth. It was worth a lot to
him-without the touch and the physical closeness at the end of the
day, he thought he really would go out of his mind-but he still didn't
think it could be worth that much to Donna. She was young, she was
intelligent, she was heart-stoppingly beautiful, and she was tied by
affection and loyalty to a sick, blind man. A bald and ugly sick,
blind man. Who spilled his food down his shirt, and couldn't make a
cup of coffee without help. And you did it to her, a voice in his head
kept screaming at him. You took her friendship and her pity and held
onto it to save yourself, and you're dragging her down with you now.
If you die, she'll have gone through all this for nothing; and it will
get worse, a lot worse, before it's over, and she'll have to watch it
and go through it with you. And if you don't die, it will be worse
still-she's too good to leave you; she'll be stuck with you for the
rest of her life. And how are you going to make that worth her while,
when you can't see to piss straight standing up?

I might get better, he thought, desperately. I might get better. I
might be able to see again. Hit the clock, and keep counting. But the
self-loathing that washed over him every day always left behind scummy
tide-marks that he couldn't brush off. It was the reason that, try as
he would to lose himself in Donna's lovemaking at the end of the day,
he couldn't come for her anymore. The thought of emptying himself into
her was just too disgusting. She deserved better than that.



Part 5-


 "Josh?" Donna said, hesitantly.

"Mmmm?" His face was buried in her neck, where he was planting little
kisses. She shivered. They felt wonderful.

"Stop for a minute, Josh, please?" He didn't stop. "Josh, please stop."

"Why, Donna?" His voice sounded thick and strange.

"I don't want to do this right now."

He stopped immediately. She could feel his whole body go tense against
hers. He swallowed, hard, before asking, "What's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong, Josh. I just don't want to do this right now."

"Okay." His grip on her loosened a little, but she could still feel
the tension that seemed to radiate out from him. "Okay. I'm sorry."

"You don't have to be sorry, Josh. It felt wonderful. I just-I'd like
to do something else sometimes."

"Of course." His voice sounded flat. He unwrapped his arms from her
and started to push himself away a little. Donna wanted to kick
herself. She wondered if she shouldn't just pull him back and start
kissing him, pass it off as a joke, but she wasn't sure she'd get the
courage back to try this again.

"I'd just like to talk more, Josh. We used to talk all the time.
You're awfully quiet these days; I miss it."

"What do you want to talk about?"

"Anything, really. Work: I want to know what you think we should be
doing to get some of these bills passed. Or the Ukrainian monetary
crisis-how do you think we should respond to it? Or the morality of
maintaining publicly funded zoos. Or theoretical physics, even though
I know nothing about it and I've forgotten everything you used to try
to tell me. Or maybe just you. Or me. Or us. Just something with
words, and not just sex all the time."

"I'm sorry," he said again, his voice flatter than ever. "I'm sorry
you haven't liked it. I should have thought; of course it would get
boring for you."

"Oh, Josh. I didn't mean that. It's been wonderful-you're a wonderful
lover. The best. But you have a wonderful mind, too, Josh, and I want
to know it again. I want to know you, to talk to you again. I haven't
stopped wanting you to make love to me; you were making me shiver just
now. I just want the other, too."

"I just-I don't think I have anything to talk about, Donna. I don't
know anything that's happening anymore. I can't go into the office. I
can't read a briefing paper or an op-ed piece in "The Post" or "The
New York Times."

"It's only been two weeks, Josh; you haven't missed that much. And you
could listen to the news."

He didn't answer her, but she could see from the way he was breathing
and the expression on his face that she was straying onto thin ice.

"But it doesn't have to be about work or the news if you don't want to
talk about that, Josh. It really could be about anything. About-about
what your first grade teacher was like. Or your first crush. I've
known you seven years, and I don't know those things about you. And
you don't know them about me."

"I do, too. Your first-grade teacher was Mrs. Pogue; she slapped
Johnny Howard for getting homesick and crying in class, and told
Marcia Petersen she'd break all her crayons if she didn't stop drawing
with just the black one."

"You remember that?"

"Of course I do. You've only talked about it like a thousand times."

"It was Johnny Petersen and Marcia Howard, but I'm still impressed."

"You shouldn't be. You really have told me about it pretty often."

"What about my first crush?"

"Scott Swineheart. You were in second grade, and you had been out sick
for a whole week and had to stay in at recess, and he passed pussy
willows through the window to you and made you an April valentine."

"Wow. And I thought you never listened. You never looked like you were
listening."

"I can do two things at once; it's called multitasking. And besides,
who could forget a name like Scott Swineheart?"

"Don't mock his name. It wasn't his fault, and he was very sweet."

"He had good taste, anyway. As long as he doesn't try the
pussy-willows-and-valentines trick again, I'll let him go unmocked."

"They moved to Denver at the end of the year; I haven't seen him since
I was eight years old."

"I expect he's still pining for you."

"Poor boy."

"Poor man, you mean. I feel for him. He shall go unmocked."

"There must be something you don't know about me that you want to know."

"I want to know everything about you, Donna."

"And I want to know everything about you. Don't think you've escaped
telling me about your first grade teacher or your first crush."

"They were one and the same. She was about nineteen, and had red hair
and this really great smile, and used to get down on the floor and
play matchbox cars with us when she was supposed to be teaching us
math."

"Really?"

"Really. She'd get us to count the cars, and then add them and take
them away. And she baked cookies and brought them in to do the same
thing. Her name was Judy. We were supposed to call her Miss Something,
but she told us she liked Judy better."

"She sounds amazing."

"She was. She lasted about three weeks, before someone ratted her out
to the school board, and they let her go."

"For what?"

"For telling us to call her Judy, I guess. And for getting down on the
floor instead of standing at the front of the room with a pointer. And
maybe for wearing her skirts too short and having really great legs."

"Josh!"

"She did, I tell you."

"You were six!"

"Five, actually, but I still knew a great leg when I saw one."

* * *

Well, that had gone well, Donna thought, as she drifted off to sleep
that night, Josh's arms wrapped around her and her head tucked under
his chin. Surprisingly well. She'd even seen a flash of his dimples
for the first time since his world had gone black. Now, if she could
only think up enough questions whose answers might include hot women
with great legs, maybe it could go that well every night. Maybe it
could go even better, and she could finally get Josh back to the point
where he could get some satisfaction again. . . .

* * *

It didn't go that well again for quite a while. It certainly didn't go
that well the next day, when Josh had a worse time getting through his
five-hundred-and-seventy minutes than usual. Realizing that Donna did,
in fact, need something more from him than sex had shaken him up; he
wasn't at all sure that he could go on satisfying her that way. The
fact that he'd succeeded in bringing the banter again was
exhilarating-she'd obviously enjoyed it-but only temporarily. It
didn't make the darkness go away, or the thoughts about dying, or
being blind for the rest of his life. It didn't keep him from spilling
his coffee at breakfast, or breaking his shins over the chair he'd
been sitting in because he'd forgotten to push it back under the table
the way Chris was always reminding him to do. It didn't keep his
mother from phoning, or him from hearing the distress in her voice as
they talked. All it did was make him worry about how he was going to
make things light and funny that night.

He tried turning on the t.v. and listening to the news for a while, to
see if he could stand it long enough to glean some tidbit he could use
to keep Donna happy later. But the talking heads were talking about
the mess at the White House apparently caused by the absence of its
Deputy Chief of Staff. "I've heard that President Bartlet is
considering several candidates as possible replacements for Josh
Lyman, if he shouldn't return." "But when do you think the President
will make a decision, Mark? The Administration is clearly stalled in
its progress with key legislation. They're handling every issue that
comes up on an ad hoc basis." "That's because they're scrambling to
cover for Lyman." "When do you think a decision might be made?" "Well,
that's the million-dollar question inside the Beltway this morning,
Jim. Of course everyone wishes Josh Lyman well, but the story that's
going around is that he's not likely to recover enough to come back to
work. The President needs to cut loose now, and choose a permanent
replacement, or his legislative agenda is going to be completely
blocked." "I'm surprised he hasn't done it before this." "President
Bartlet is known as a very loyal man-foolishly loyal, at times." "Leo
McGarry isn't. I'd have thought he'd have had the balls to do what
needs to be done before now." "Well, Josh Lyman has always been
McGarry's golden boy, you know. That's undoubtedly why he survived the
Big Tobacco debacle three years ago . . ." "And there's the PR factor.
It doesn't look good to fire a dying man, especially one who gained as
much public sympathy as Josh did when he was shot four years ago." "Is
Josh actually dying?" "Well, of course, one can't say for sure. But a
story in 'The Washington Times' this morning quotes an unnamed source
as saying . . . ."

Josh turned the set off, feeling sick, and brooded about what he'd
heard for the rest of the day. By the time Donna got home he was too
far down even to try to talk to her. He held her a little less closely
than usual, answered her questions in monosyllables, and didn't seem
deeply engaged in the sex that followed. For the first time ever, he
let her go before she really wanted him to, and rolled over on his
side, pretending to want to go to sleep. Donna was baffled, and
concerned.

"What's the matter, Josh?"

"Nothing."

"Did something happen today?"

"No."

"Does your head hurt again?"

"No."

"You don't seem well."

"I'm fine. I just want to go to sleep now."

"Okay. 'Night."

"'Night."

He waited until she'd fallen asleep to get out of bed and make his way
cautiously out of the room. He didn't know what to do with himself. He
couldn't stop the voices talking in his head; couldn't stop his own
voice, or his mother's, talking there too. In the end he stretched
himself out on the bathroom floor, because he was hot and restless,
and it felt cold and still. He lay there on his stomach, listening to
Georgie's music coming up through the plumbing, and hearing his mother
saying over and over again, "It's time, Josh. It's time. It's time.
It's time."

* * *

Josh called Leo in the morning. It was the first time he'd tried to
use the phone without Chris beside him, and he had to punch the number
in three times before he got it right. It was only when he heard
Margaret picking up that he remembered he'd had it on speed-dial.

"Leo? It's Josh."

"Josh! How are you? It's great to hear from you. What are you up to?"

"Not much. Listen, Leo, I've been thinking-I should resign."

"Resign? Josh, no."

"Really, Leo. It would be best for everybody."

"You're entitled to sick leave, Josh. Your job will be waiting for you
when you're better."

"But nobody knows when that's going to be now, Leo. Or even if it's
going to be. It was one thing when I was just doing the chemo; there
was an end date attached to that, you knew what to expect. But with me
like this-"

"The President won't hear of it, Josh."

"Then you need to make him hear it, Leo."

"I'm not accustomed to being told what to do by my deputy."

"I can't be your deputy if I can't see, Leo. You know that. You need
to get somebody in there who's permanent, who can really take over the
job and do it properly."

"I have somebody in, Josh. I have two somebodies, Geoff and Frank.
They're both very capable, though neither one of them is the man I
want in the job permanently."

"You need someone permanent, Leo. Too much stuff is slipping through
the cracks. It's all they're talking about out there, that the
President's legislative agenda is in jeopardy. The President can't
afford that. You can't afford it. I'm not going to let you afford it.
I'm resigning, Leo. Today. Now."

"The President won't accept your resignation, Josh."

"He'll have to. He can't force me to work. I can't work, anyway."

"Then you'll resign and the position will go unfilled. We're fine with
Geoff and Frank, Josh. They do a good job, an excellent job. It takes
two of them to do what you did alone, but they're doing it well. We've
had a few bumps lately, but bumps happen when you're making a
transition. Things are smoothing out already, especially with Donna
back. She's amazing."

"You don't have to tell me that."

"No, I know I don't. But Josh-you're pretty damn good, too. We don't
want to lose you. I'll tell the President what you've told me, and
he'll tell you to shove it, and C.J. will tell the press that you've
offered your resignation and it's been refused. End of conversation."

"Leo-"

"Goodbye, Josh."

* * *

"Good morning, Josh."

"Mr. President? Good morning, sir."

"How are you, Josh?"

"I'm fine, sir. How are you, sir?"

"I've been better, Josh. I'm a little irked this morning. It seems I'm
having some trouble with my Deputy Chief of Staff."

"Sir-"

"It seems he won't listen to my Chief of Staff. Leo McGarry's an
important man, Josh; he's my right-hand man. He's also your boss. You
need to listen to him."

"Sir-"

"I've always found it a good idea to listen to Leo, myself. He's a
wise man, Josh. When he says someone's the right person for a job, I
listen to him. Especially when he's saying what I already know for
myself."

"But, sir-"

"I won't accept your resignation, Josh. I wanted you to hear that from
the horse's mouth. And I'm quite a horse-a two-time triple-crown
winner. Best in Show."

"Sir-"

"Do I have to remind you that you serve at the pleasure of the President, Josh?"

"I can't serve if I can't see, sir. You know that. I can't read a
briefing paper. I can't look a congressman in the eye and tell him to
go screw himself. I can't even walk across my own apartment without
falling over something-"

"Josh-"

"I can't do it, sir. I want to do it, I'm incredibly honored that you
want me to do it, but I can't. I'm washed up. And I'm clogging up the
news cycle for you, and I'll go on doing it as long as I'm still on
staff. You don't need C.J. spending half her time fielding questions
about when you're going to replace me or when I'm going to kick it. I
can't serve you any more. You've got to let me go, sir."

"Josh, do you remember your Milton?"

"Sir?"

"He was an interesting man, John Milton. A politician; a passionate
politician. A reformer."

"This is the poet, right, sir? The 'Paradise Lost' guy?"

"This is the poet, right, Josh. You had a good education; you know
what I'm talking about. 'They also serve who only stand and wait,'
Josh."

"Sir-"

"'They also serve who only stand and wait.' Source, Josh?"

"One of the sonnets, right, sir?"

"That's right. Which one?"

"The one about going blind, right, sir?"

"That's right, Josh. He wrestled with all the same questions you have
to face right now. 'Does God exact day-labor, light denied?' But he
found his way to serve, and so will you. In the meantime, I'm
announcing that you've offered your resignation, and I have refused
it. That should get the press off you for a bit. I take it you heard
'Capitol Beat' yesterday. C.J.'s already been on the phone to their
producers, taking a piece off their backs."

"It doesn't matter, sir."

"It does matter, Josh. Don't listen to that crap. You're going to get
better and you're going to come back here when you do."

"I can't promise that, sir."

"I know, Josh. But I can."

"That's called hubris, sir. Or mendacity. Or worse."

"It's called faith, Josh."



Part 6-


 "Mr. Lyman? Are you there, Mr. Lyman? It's Georgie, sir."

"Hang on, Georgie. I've got to get to the door without falling over
something. Here, come on in, man. Is everything all right?"

"As right as it can be, sir, with you like this."

"Yeah, well, that's one thing I won't expect you to try to fix."

"I'm worried about you, Mr. Lyman, sir."

"I wish you'd call me Josh, Georgie."

"Yes, sir. I know, sir."

"Josh, Georgie. Just do it; it's not that hard to say."

"Yes, sir. It's too quiet up here, sir. I know my hearing isn't what
it was, but usually when you're home you've got the news on, sir, and
I can hear that."

"I'm sorry, Georgie. I didn't know you could hear it. I didn't mean to
bother you."

"It doesn't bother me, sir. It's just quiet, in the background, and it
lets me know you're there."

"So you can get into trouble when I'm not there, right?"

"That's right, sir. You have no idea of the trouble I get into when
you're not here. All kinds of mischief I can get up to around this
place, let me tell you. But I haven't been hearing a peep from up here
for the last couple of weeks, sir."

"Sorry, Georgie. You'll just have to keep out of trouble, I guess."

"Yes, sir. I'll keep it in mind, sir. But I know you can't read
anymore, Mr. Lyman. You shouldn't be sitting up here by yourself all
quiet in the dark, sir. It's not healthy."

"I'm fine, Georgie."

"I don't know, sir. I can see why you might not fancy the t.v. much
these days, and most of what's on the radio is trash, but I've brought
you something here I thought you might like, sir."

"What's that, Georgie? You don't have to bring me anything."

"Well, sir, it's my old phonograph."

"What? Georgie-"

"Record player, I guess you'd call it, sir. I know you don't have one
any more; just that CD thing, that plays those little shiny silver
things. And you don't have any decent music on those."

"That's incredibly kind of you, Georgie, but you can't do without your
turntable. You listen to it all the time."

"I'll be just fine, sir. It won't be forever; just till you're up and
about again, Mr. Lyman, sir."

"I couldn't possibly take it from you, Georgie. And I don't have any
records, anyway; I got rid of all mine years ago."

"I know that sir, so I've brought you some of mine."

"Georgie-"

"We've had some real good talks over these, Mr. Lyman. I know you
don't want me up here all the time every day, making you talk when you
don't feel like it, getting in your way. But it would do me good to
think you had them up here to listen to, so you weren't so quiet, by
yourself here."

"Georgie, I-"

"I've got it all set up now, Mr. Lyman, sir. You're not going to make
me undo all these wires now, are you? I've hooked it up to your
receiver, there, and your speakers. You can still use your CD thing,
if you want it."

"Georgie, I don't know what to say."

"You don't have to say nothing, Mr. Lyman. You've been a real good
friend to me. Come over here now, and I'll show you how to work it.
It's right here, third shelf up, and the on switch is in this corner.
The arm'll go across by itself; you don't need to touch it. Oh, and I
marked the covers for the LP's with bits of masking tape, sticking off
the edge here. Give me your hand. See? One tab for JSB-can't do
without him. Two for old Beethoven; he's a good friend. Three for
Chopin. There's nothing like Chopin when you really need to let it
out. Four . . . ."

* * *

"Where did this come from?"

"It's Georgie's. He brought it up this afternoon."

"What on earth for? You have a CD player."

"He seemed to think I might like a different type of music to listen
to. He's seen my CD collection, and doesn't approve."

"He brought you these records? Bach, Beethoven, Chopin, Schubert . . .?"

"Yeah. I feel awful; I don't know what he'll do without them."

"Or what you'll do with them. You don't even like this kind of music."

"Yeah."

"What a sweet, pointless thing to do."

"Yeah."

"Poor Georgie."

"Yeah."

* * *

Josh woke up, shaking and sweating. In his dreams he could see: light,
too much light: flames leaping up, reflected everywhere, and the red
and blue lights flashing and spinning, round and round. He could hear,
too: screams, high-pitched, shrill, like a girl's voice screaming, or
a young boy's. Or both. Sirens. Music: beautiful, incessant music;
shouldn't someone have turned the music off? It was incongruous,
playing away through the sirens and the sound of the flames. Sirens.
Lights. Flames. Music. And the screaming. And the pain: someone was
hurting, someone was dying. Him? Her? He was never sure.

He crawled out of bed. He must not have cried out; Donna was still
sleeping, her breathing light, steady. He stood for a minute,
listening to it, trying to quiet his own breathing to the same steady
pace. Then he felt his way to the bathroom, sat on the toilet, dropped
his head in his hands. It was very quiet there; Georgie must be
missing his record player. He thought about how he'd lain on the floor
just the night before, listening to Georgie's music. Chopin, and
Schubert. He remembered his mother's voice on the telephone: It's
time, Josh. You can't run away from it forever. It's time, Josh. It's
time. It's time. It's time.

* * *

"So tell me something else about you I don't know."

Donna sighed. They'd been doing this for over a week now, and she was
getting fed up with it. She could hardly complain-it had been her idea
in the first place-but she'd never meant to create such a one-sided
debriefing session.

Josh was trying, she knew that. She'd said she wanted to talk; he was
making an effort to talk. Or, at least, to get her to talk. And she
liked talking. She liked talking about herself, her childhood, her
family, her memories of school, the things she'd done once and hadn't
had time to do in years. But she'd never intended this to be all about
her. She wanted to learn new things about Josh, but, except for that
delicious tidbit about his first-grade teacher, she hadn't been able
to get him to say much she didn't already know. He'd answer direct
questions-"Who was your second grade teacher?" "Miss Hamilton"-but he
wouldn't volunteer any details. He actually seemed uncomfortable when
he was on the receiving end of the questions, and would flip them back
at her as quickly as possible. It was really starting to get to her.

It wasn't like she didn't know a lot about him already. She knew
hundreds of things. She knew he'd always liked basketball and
baseball. She knew he'd always been a Mets fan. She knew he'd got good
grades in school. She knew he'd never gone to prison, or been busted
for drugs. There wasn't anything in his past to be ashamed of, so why
did he seem so tense when she was asking about his favorite hobbies
when he was in grade school, for goodness' sake? College, no problem;
she could get him to talk about that ad nauseum, if she wanted to, but
she didn't want to; she already knew all about his roommate Chris, and
what it had been like working on "The Crimson," and how he'd met Danny
Concannon, and how excited he'd been about winning a Fulbright. High
school he was pretty open about, too; she knew the names of the girls
he'd dated, the teachers he'd liked and the ones he hadn't, how much
fun he'd had on the softball team, once he'd realized he was never
going to play the real thing and join the Mets. But again, she already
knew all that. She wanted him to tell her things she didn't know. But
when she tried to probe further back, into his pre-high-school days,
he clammed up as if she were asking him to reveal state secrets. It's
not as if I'm trying to get him to tell me how his sister died, she
thought, a little crossly. I just asked if he ever did band.

And it was hard to come up with answers to questions as open-ended as,
"Tell me something I don't know about you." It was making her annoyed.
Why couldn't he take the trouble to ask a real question? She suspected
that he wasn't taking this very seriously, which she knew shouldn't
surprise her-he's a guy, Donna, she thought; what do you expect?-but
somehow did. She'd really thought he cared more than that, even if he
couldn't bring himself to say so in the way she wanted him to. He
could put all that effort and imagination into having sex with her,
but he couldn't think of a decent question to ask her about her life,
and he wouldn't give her a decent answer to anything she asked him
about his. Maybe her body really was the only thing he cared about.
Maybe he really did find everything else about her boring. Maybe there
was a good reason he wouldn't say, "I love you."

It had been a long day, in a long week-in several long weeks. She was
tired, she was hungry, and she was getting her period. Okay, she
thought suddenly, I'll TELL him something he doesn't know about me.
And before she could think better of it, she said,

"I'll bet you don't know that I was at Chicago."

"When were you in Chicago?"

"At Chicago. The University of Chicago. I started college there."

"The University of Chicago? Seriously?"

"Yes, seriously. Do you think I make things up to tell you?"

"That's a really good school."

"Yes, it is. Why are you surprised? I told you I was valedictorian of
my high school."

"I'm not-I just-Well, okay, I'm surprised. I hired you, remember? I've
seen your transcripts. I'm sure I'd have noticed one from Chicago."

"I didn't give you a transcript from there. I never got one."

"Why not?"

There was a pause. When she answered, Donna sounded more hesitant.

"I only went for a semester. I left before finals, actually, so I
never got my grades. I did fine on all my midterms, though."

"Why did you ever leave?" This time the pause was longer. Donna was
wondering what she had been thinking of, starting this, and how she
could get out of it. Josh could feel her trembling against him, which
upset him. "Why won't you tell me? Wait, I know. It was a guy, wasn't
it? God, Donna-what was this one, your highschool boyfriend? Who
couldn't cope with his girl going away and getting a better education
than he was, so you went back to hold his hand? What is it with you,
Donna? Don't you ever learn? First that guy, then your freeriding med
student at Wisconsin. You're always giving up your life for some
son-of-a-bitch stupid jerk who doesn't do anything for you in return."
Like me, he was thinking to himself. Like me.

Donna sat up suddenly and jerked herself out of his arms. "Damn it,
Josh, do you have to be so-so patronizing? I hate it when you do that.
You're always sneering at me, looking down at me because of the guys
I've dated and the mess I made of my education."

"I'm not sneering at you, Donna! I've never sneered at you. I just hate-"

She could hear the distress in his voice, and knew she was being
unfair, but she couldn't stop herself. She interrupted, cutting him
off:

"You just hate that I'll hand myself over to any idiot, as long as
he'll pay me a compliment or two; that's it, isn't it Josh? You think
I sell myself cheap."

"No, Donna, no, I didn't mean-"

"It wasn't like that, Josh! It wasn't like that at all." Her voice was
shaking, with anger and something else. "I was seventeen, I was a
virgin, for crying out loud. I didn't drop out to go home to my
highschool boyfriend. I went to a party at a frat house; I went with
my roommate. There was a guy there who knew her a little; she had a
crush on him-he was a big goodlooking jock, he was on the hockey team.
He started hitting on me as soon as we walked in the door. I talked to
him for a bit, but then I realized how drunk he was, and how pissed it
was making Sherry that he was talking to me instead of her, and I
tried to get away from him, but he wouldn't leave me alone. I should
have gone home, I realize that, but Sherry didn't want to leave and I
didn't know anyone else and I was too scared to walk across the campus
by myself, at night, alone. So I stayed and he kept dropping his hands
all over me and trying to kiss me; he stank of booze, it was gross,
and he had his hand up my dress and I couldn't get him off me. So I
stopped trying to be nice about it and I told him to get lost. I think
I said I wouldn't like him even if he was sober, but he was drunk and
gross and I wanted him to get his disgusting hands off me. A bunch of
his friends from the team were standing around, and they heard me and
started to laugh. So he said I was a frigid bitch and he'd teach me
how to loosen up, and he shoved me down on this couch and pushed my
dress up and started pulling my pantyhose off. I screamed at him to
stop but he didn't pay any attention and the music was really loud and
everyone else was really drunk and he was big and strong and I
couldn't get him off me. Somebody had thrown up all over the couch
earlier and someone else had tossed the cushions out of the window; I
was on the springs, they dug into my back, I had the marks for weeks.
And my head was in a puddle of vomit that had dripped down between the
cushions, it was all over my hair, it stank. And there was this
six-foot-four, two-hundred-forty-pound guy I didn't even like pushing
himself into me, and he stank, and it hurt like hell, and when it was
all over and he finally rolled off me, I could hardly stand up. I
could hardly walk. My dress was torn, my stockings were in shreds, and
I had to pull my bra down and get my hose off and find my shoes and
get out of there, with everyone looking. I could hear his friends
laughing-some of them had been laughing and cheering while he was
doing it-and Dave telling someone I'd begged him for it but I wasn't
much good as a lay, and I was too scared and too humiliated to say
anything; I just wanted to get out of there and get home. I had to
walk across the campus like that, with my dress torn, trying to hold
it together in front, and you know the funny thing? Nobody tried to
attack me at all. I could have left that party any time, but I thought
I shouldn't, so I stayed and I got raped anyway. And when I got home I
got in the shower and stayed there for two hours, trying to get the
smell of him off me, the feel of him out from between my legs and the
puke out of my hair. It turned out I did that wrong, too; you're not
supposed to take a bath or a shower after; you're supposed to go
straight to the police so they can scrape you out and get all the
evidence they need in case you decide to go to court about it. I knew
all about that-they'd had workshops in the dorms about it, and
everything-but I never even thought of it; all I thought about was
wanting to get clean. And warm; I was black and blue, I hurt, and I
couldn't stop shivering. And then I went to my room and locked the
door and pushed the dresser in front of it and got into bed and pulled
the covers over my head and stayed there for two days. My roommate
came home the next morning, but she couldn't get in; she was pretty
pissed at me, but I couldn't bring myself to get out of bed to move
the dresser. I let her in the next day, and I tried to tell her what
happened, but do you know what she said? 'God, Donna, don't do that
Ice Queen act with me; why don't you just admit you enjoyed it?' And
then she said, 'You're such a bitch. You knew I liked him; why
couldn't you just leave him alone?' I found out later she told
everyone I'd been a total slut all semester. She wanted me to move
out, and I couldn't face the idea of seeing anyone who'd seen me
there, like that, or who'd heard about it, so I put all my things in
my car and drove home. And that's the story of Donna Moss and why she
never finished her first semester at the University of Chicago."

Somewhere in the middle of what she was saying Josh had pushed himself
across the sofa and pulled her into his arms. They were as tight
around her as it was possible to be now; he was actually hurting her,
but there was something so comforting about the feel of him around her
that she didn't want him to loosen his grip. His head was buried in
her hair; his breath was warm on her cheek, and something else, too,
warm and wet. It could have been sweat. His breathing was ragged, and
she could feel his heart pounding fast against her back. Her own heart
was pounding too. He held her that way for a long time, rocking
slightly, back and forth, before he said anything. When he did, his
voice sounded strangled.

"What was his name?"

"What?"

"His name?"

"Dave."

"What else?"

"I don't know, I don't remember."

"What was his major, then?"

"What?"

"What was his major? What was he studying?"

"I don't remember. I don't know if I ever knew."

"You said he was on the hockey team. What position did he play?"

"I have no idea. Why on earth are you asking? Why do you care?"

"So I can find him. So I can find the fucking bastard and kill him. So
I can rip him from head to toe, and tear his fucking balls off."

Donna laughed, an hysterical giggle. She was so keyed up she couldn't
help it. "Oh, Josh."

"What do you mean, 'Oh, Josh'?" His voice was still angry.

"I mean, I just-why do you guys all have to sound alike?"

"Alike?" Josh exploded. "You think I'm like HIM? God damn it, Donna, I
may be like Freeride, I may be like some drop-out highschool
boyfriend, holding you back, but I am NOT like him. For seven
god-damned years I held myself back from you, because I couldn't tell
whether you wanted me or not, because you worked with me and if you
didn't want me it would make your life hell, and I wasn't going to do
that to you, even though I know I did enough else. Seven god-damned,
fucking years. I didn't get to touch you when I was fit and healthy. I
didn't get to kiss you when I still had hair. Do you have any idea how
much I used to want to feel your hands in my hair while I kissed you?
I didn't get to make love to you when I was strong enough to really do
something with it, when my chest wasn't covered with scars and I had
hair on it, when I didn't look like a freak. I wanted to wake up and
see you in the morning for the rest of my life, but I only got a month
of that. I wanted to take care of you, not stick you with taking care
of a useless, sightless wreck like me. But I never got to do that, and
I'm probably never going to. Because I waited, because I didn't know
what you wanted and I didn't want to force myself on you. And you
think I'm like some fucking asshole rapist who should be rotting his
fucking life out in jail?"

"Josh. Josh. Stop. I didn't mean that. I'm sorry. You know I didn't mean that."

"You're sorry? What the hell do you have to be sorry about, Donna?
It's me who's sorry. I'm sorry there are guys like that. I'm sorry you
met one of them. I'm sorry I wasn't there to pull him off you and kill
him in front of you, because I would have, I really would. I'm sorry
you ever had to go through that. I'm sorry you ever met Freeride, and
I'm sorry you ever got tied up with me. I'm sorry about every
god-damned thing I've ever said that's upset you, every time I ever
gave you a hard time about a date, anything, everything. You're
amazing, that you ever wanted to go on a date again, that you ever let
a man touch you again. You blow me away. But you know you always did.
I've always thought you were amazing. I've never sneered at you,
Donna, never. Never. I was jealous and I hated that you went out with
anyone except me. You know that. You have to know that."

He was beside himself. Donna didn't know where to start. She'd never
intended to tell him that story, and telling it had upset her more
than she'd realized it would, but that paled in comparison with what
Josh was telling her about himself right now.

"Josh. Stop. Listen to me. You've got to listen to me. I'm sorry I
told you that; I didn't mean to. I don't want you to be upset about
it. It's not a big deal anymore, Josh, not really. It happened, it was
hard-it was really hard-but it was a long time ago, it's over. I wish
it hadn't happened, and I wish I'd done things differently-I wish I'd
gone to the police, taken him to court-but I couldn't then, I really
couldn't, and I'm okay with that now. I did the best I could, and I
think I did okay. I didn't let it destroy me; I built my life back
again. Yes, it affected me. Yes, it's why I dropped out of Chicago,
and it's probably why I dropped out of Wisconsin, too, when Alan asked
me to. I really wish I hadn't; I hate that about myself. I wish I'd
stuck to my guns and got my degree. I'm always conscious of not having
it; it's so hard, sometimes, working with the smartest, best-educated
people in the country, and not having at least that achievement behind
me. I wish I hadn't let Dave take that away from me. But I didn't let
him take everything. You're right; it wasn't easy for me to date for a
long time afterwards, but I really wanted to, so I did it. That was
what mattered most to me then, what I wanted most not to lose to him.
I wanted a normal relationship, and I had one with Alan for a while.
He wasn't a jerk, Josh; he was good for me then in a lot of ways. I
did love him, and I think he loved me, even though we weren't very
wise about my dropping out of school to work and pay his way. He
wasn't just using me, or he didn't mean to. We were both just
young-too young and too different; it wasn't something that was going
to last. It shouldn't have lasted as long as it did, but I didn't have
the confidence to end it any sooner.

"And I don't know if I would have had the confidence to leave him the
second time, after I'd gone back to him, if it hadn't been for you,
Josh. You gave me that confidence, when you hired me. You took a big
chance, but you let me see that I could do something, be something on
my own; that I didn't have to be with Alan all my life. You are not
like Alan, Josh; I don't even know why you'd say that. And you're
certainly not like Dave. And I'm sorry, I'm so sorry that you feel
like you missed out because we didn't get together years ago. I wish
we had, too. But Josh, I'm just so grateful every day that we did get
together, that we are together now. It really, honestly doesn't matter
to me whether you have hair or not, or whether you have the same
muscles now that you did years ago, or whether your chest has hair on
it, or scars, or not. I do wish you could still see. If I could let
you see by giving you one of my own eyes, I would. I really, really
hope it's only temporary and you're going to see again. But Josh, if
you never do, it wouldn't make any difference to me. You're not
useless. You're not a wreck. And you're not a burden, Josh. You're
still in shock; it's been less than a month since you stopped being
able to see. I was a mess a month after Dave raped me, and losing your
virginity, even that way, is a hell of a lot less traumatic than
losing your sight. Of course that's hard for you to deal with. But
you're going to deal with it; you're going to find useful things to
do. Things you can be proud of. Things I can be proud of. Because I've
always been very proud of knowing you, Josh, and I still am, and I
know I always will be."

Josh dropped his head and blinked, fast, struggling not to let his
eyes betray him. He really didn't want to break down right now. It was
a minute before he found his voice, and when he did, it was deep and
husky. "Thanks." That was all he could say. He wrestled for another
minute, trying to stay in control. Donna saved him. "Come on," she
said, running her hands up under his shirt. "I'm sick of all this
talking. I want to have SEX." She pushed him back down against the
couch and rolled on top of him, and suddenly they were both laughing,
hysterically, as if having sex instead of talking was the funniest
idea either of them had ever heard. Though, when they'd had it, there
wasn't much question that both of them had found it entirely
satisfactory.



Part 7-


 Josh didn't head for the couch when Donna left the next morning. He
had phone calls to make. He'd lain awake much of the night, thinking
about what he could do, and he'd come up with a plan
that-surprisingly-still seemed worth doing after breakfast. He fiddled
with the phone. The first call was easy, 411. The second took a couple
of tries; it was to the long-distance directory for the area code he'd
requested from 411. For the third he just hit "star" to connect, even
though Chris would have told him that was cheating. After that he got
stuck for a while in electronic menus, until he decided to pretend he
was calling from a rotary phone, and stop hitting numbers. He was
surprised by how quickly he reached a receptionist after that. She put
him through to the office he asked for, where it took him a little
while to convince the woman he was talking to that he probably was who
he said he was. She softened, however, when he promised to take care
of all future correspondence with her in writing, on White House
letterhead, and she outlined for him the procedures that he wanted to
know about. He repeated them several times, to be sure he had them
straight; he was glad he'd always had a good memory, since he couldn't
take notes. Then he thanked her, promised her again that she'd be
hearing from the White House soon, and rang off.

The next call was harder. He needed someone who could take care of all
this writing on White House letterhead he'd just been promising, as
well as some other things. He hated asking for favors from his
friends, and this was a big favor, something that was going to take
quite a lot of time. After dithering around for a while, stalling, he
decided to start with C.J. This time he remembered to use his
speed-dial.

"Hey, Claudia Jean."

"JOSH?"

"You got him. Do you have a minute?"

"For you, mi amor, only for you. Hang on a sec-" He could hear her
talking to Carol. "There. I've bought a few minutes. How are you,
Josh?"

"I'm okay, C.J. Look, I was wondering-I hate to ask this, it's kind of
an imposition, but-I was wondering if you could do something for me."

"Anything, Josh."

"It's going to take some time. I could kick myself for not having
thought of this ages ago, when I could have done it myself, but I
thought, if I asked Toby too, maybe even Will, it might not be so
bad."

"We'll do it, Josh, whatever it is. Don't worry about that. What is it?"

"Well . . ."

* * *

Donna climbed the back steps, opened the door, and stopped in
surprise. Drifting down the hallway from the front of the house, she
heard music. Not Simon and Garfunkel or CSNY, not the Beatles or the
Stones. Not Springsteen. Not the Doobie Brothers. Not, in short, any
of the predictable hits of his youth that Josh used to listen to, back
in the days when he would, occasionally, put a CD in his
player-something he hadn't done in quite a while. She stood still,
listening, trying to place the piece. She was better with orchestral
music, or solos for the flute, but she thought this must be Beethoven,
probably one of the sonatas. She thought Georgie must have come up to
visit again; Josh would have put on one of his records to be kind. She
couldn't imagine him listening to classical music for any other
reason.

She dropped her purse and tote bag on the floor, hung up her coat, and
made her way to the living room. She walked in smiling, expecting to
see Georgie and Josh sitting together talking to each other, the way
they used to down in Georgie's basement, while the music played in the
background. But Georgie wasn't there. It was earlier than usual-Frank
and Geoff had both had meetings on the Hill, and had told her she
could go home-so the room was still quite light. At first she thought
it was empty. Then she realized that Josh was in his usual place,
lying on the couch. His eyes were closed; his forehead was wrinkled a
bit, as though he were concentrating. Behind him the lights on the
stereo were glinting, and a black vinyl disk was turning quickly under
the steel arm and the tiny diamond needle of the record player,
pouring forth notes written two hundred years before into the room.

* * *

Josh woke up shaking again. The sirens, the screams, the lights, the
music. He was having the dreams every night now, the way he used to,
after the shooting.

Only this time, it was different. This time he knew what was
happening. He knew why it was happening. And he knew what he had to do
about it.

Not just the things they had taught him in therapy. Not just avoiding
the trigger. Not just deep breathing, or the repetition of calming
phrases, or forcing himself to choose an object he knew was real and
focus on it-which would be impossible now, anyway. He knew he had to
go beyond that. Had to stop running away. Had to make himself whole.

He knew what that meant; knew what he had to do. The only trouble was,
the idea scared him so much, he didn't know if he could do it.

* * *

Donna didn't know whether to be worried about Josh or not. The changes
in him over the last few days were dramatic, but in many ways she
thought they were for the better. She didn't come home to find him
sitting in silence any more; the music was always on, Georgie's
music-the classical music that Josh had scoffed at or ignored for as
long as she'd known him. He never looked as if he were enjoying it,
exactly-never looked happy or relaxed, when she caught sight of him
before he'd realize she was in the room. In fact he looked almost
worried. Concentrated-as if all his energy, all his attention was
focused on the sound that was filling his ears-but tense, too, as if
he was aware of some danger that was invisible to her, and had to stay
alert in case it suddenly broke in on them. Sometimes he would be
lying on the couch, as he had been that afternoon when she'd first
found him listening to the music, but more often he would be pacing
around it. He knew his way around the apartment better now, and didn't
stumble as often. The pacing was so like the old Josh it comforted
Donna, but she wondered where all the nervous energy had suddenly come
from, what had set it off. It was there at night, too; his sleep was
more restless even than usual, and she was pretty sure he was having
nightmares again. She knew he had had a bad time at night when he'd
first developed PTSD, and she wondered if it might be coming back
again. Music had been the trigger before. Only this time Josh didn't
seem to want to avoid the music; he sought it out.

* * *

The music was playing on the stereo in the living room. Bach, one of
the violin concertos; she loved that piece. "Listen," she said to him.
"Listen to that bit, right there." "I'm hungry," he said. "Let's get
something to eat."

From a long ways away, he watched himself watch her get out the pan,
the oil, the popcorn. 1972-nobody had an electric popper or a
microwave then. You made it in a heavy skillet. It was easy: you
poured in a little oil, dumped in some popcorn kernels, put on the
lid, and took turns shaking it over the burner until it was all
popped. Then you poured it into a bowl, stirred in the butter and
salt, and took it back to the living room, where the music was. You'd
lie on the floor together, the bowl between you, as close to the
speakers as you could get. You'd let the music fill you up, carry you
away. Carry both of you away. Just for a minute or two; just till the
end of this piece.

Someone did turn the stove off, didn't they? Someone did move the pan
off the burner?

* * *

It had been a rough night. The sirens had been louder, the flames had
leapt higher, the screams had been more shrill. The music had poured
out into the night, more beautifully and more incessantly than ever.
Josh had woken Donna up, not once, but three times, thrashing around.

It's time, Josh. It's time. It's time. It's time.

* * *

Josh sat on the edge of the couch, flexing his fingers nervously. He'd
been up and down and around the room twenty or thirty times that
morning. He'd put a record on the turntable, listened to it for a
minute, switched it off. And on again. And off. And on. And off. It
was off now; the room was silent, except for the sound of his knuckles
cracking. He shouldn't do that. He did it anyway.

Suddenly he pushed himself to his feet and made his way slowly across
the room until he bumped up against the piano, stretched out under the
window. He leaned on it, breathing jaggedly. It felt solid, unmovable,
infinitely reassuring. He stood with his hands pressed against it for
several minutes, anchoring himself to its strong bulk, trying to slow
his breathing down. The wood was cool and mostly smooth, though when
he started to run his fingers over it he could feel the little dings
and dents in the finish. He didn't need his eyes to know what it
looked like; it had never been one of those glossy, ebonized
instruments, but an old piece in warm, mellow wood, a little battered
from three generations of use. It had been his mother's, and her
mother's before her. He opened his hands flat and ran them along the
instrument's smooth, curving side; a shiver went down his spine and
into his gut-it was almost sexual. He took a step or two, his hands
following the curve, until his fingers found the keyboard. His hand
hit a key accidentally, and it pinged: the very highest B on the
board. He stepped directly in front of the keyboard and touched it,
tentatively. A note quavered: D above high C. He touched a different
key, more firmly this time, listening appreciatively to the full,
rounded sound as it rang out into the darkness. The A flat below high
C. His thumb found middle C, and he let his fingers run up the scale.
Then he tried his left hand, picking out notes one at a time: the F
two octaves below middle C. The B flat one octave below. The G below.
The A. The B. Then the scale, moving down. The piano was just a little
flat-not much, not as bad as you'd expect considering its long journey
and the difference in climate between West Palm Beach and Washington.

He had always been able to tell. Perfect pitch, they called it.
Someone must have taught him the names of the notes once-he couldn't
remember-but they hadn't had to teach him how to tell the G from the A
or the octave either note was in. His ability to name the notes and
tell whether an instrument was sharp or flat or perfectly in tune had
driven Joanie crazy-for all her passion for music she couldn't do it
herself-but she'd been proud of him, too. He remembered how she used
to show him off to her friends, especially the musical ones: "Turn
around and close your eyes, Josh. What note am I playing? And this
one? And this?" And the murmur of surprise from the other girls,
astonishment sometimes, once in a while outright disbelief.

Josh pulled out the bench and sat down. With both hands on the
keyboard and starting a couple of octaves below middle C, he ran
through the scales, one by one. C, C sharp/D flat, D, D sharp/E flat,
F, F sharp/G flat, G, G sharp/A flat, A, A sharp/B flat, B, C again.
Up and down, several octaves at a time, his touch growing surer with
each repetition, the sound growing stronger and fuller. He started to
shape the scales: crescendo, diminuendo. Then he tried some arpeggios.
Then some chord progressions. Then the scales again.

After a while, wondering if he was crazy even to try, he stretched his
hands out over the keys and stretched his mind back over thirty years,
summoning the notes. The right hand first: F below high C, D flat, A
flat. B flat, C. D flat, E flat, F, G flat. F again, twice. E flat, D
flat. Dotted eighth notes, half note, quarter, dotted quarter,
quarter, dotted eighth again, half, quarter, dotted quarter, eighth,
quarter. And then the grace note and the lilting, twisting little run.
The haunting melody filled the room: Chopin. He thought how odd it was
that a piece in a major key could make you want to cry. He added the
left hand, the quiet, insistent rhythm that reminded so many people of
rain falling. Prelude number 15 in D flat major, the "Raindrop." His
again, after all these years.

He played it through, amazed that he still remembered the shifts of
key and variations on the theme. He made plenty of mistakes, but his
fingers always found the right notes again, which astonished him. When
he was finished he played it again, and again. It wasn't a
particularly difficult piece. He'd been playing harder than that, a
lot harder, when he'd quit. He wondered what else his fingers
remembered, and he tried something, a Bach invention, and was
surprised again by how readily it came back. Then a piece by Schumann,
then a movement of a sonata by Beethoven. Then Bach again-one of the
preludes, this time--some Mozart, and more Chopin. He couldn't believe
he could still do it. It occurred to him that he was playing better
than he'd played before-not technically, of course, but musically-and
he thought that was a strange thing. Not to touch an instrument in
thirty-two years, to try your best not to think about it for
thirty-two years, and then to sit back down and play with more feeling
and understanding and conviction than you'd been able to before at
even your best competition-hell, even your best private moment-seemed
unreasonable. It defied everything teachers and parents had ever said
about the importance of daily practice. Josh grinned to himself, just
a little; he wished Mrs. Sarkowsky was there now, to hear all her pet
dictums confounded.

Of course, she'd probably just remind him, tartly, that he was
forty-four, and ask him how much better he would have been playing if
he'd kept working at it. The thought sobered him. He would never be
concert quality now, but there'd been a time when he'd thought he
might be, someday. Other people had thought so, too: his teachers, his
parents. Joanie. That had been the plan: she was going to conduct the
New York Philharmonic at Carnegie Hall, and he was going to play
concertos under her baton. Their plan, her plan-her second plan,
anyway; there'd been a time, he could just remember, when she'd been
the one who was going to be playing the concertos while Leonard
Bernstein conducted. Josh remembered the way she'd looked at him the
first time he'd won a state competition: with so much pride it was
shining out of her smile, her eyes, but with a touch of something
else, too. The next day she'd told their parents she wanted to learn
violin, and soon she'd started to talk about becoming a conductor
instead of a pianist after all. She'd started violin lessons and had
picked the difficult instrument up so easily that no one had thought
much about the sudden shift in her priorities, but looking back now
Josh wondered what his performance had done to her sense of her own.
Something else to feel guilty about, as if he needed any more of that.
He started to play the Chopin again, letting the ache inside him leach
out into his fingers and into the notes that filled the room.

Donna heard the music as she was opening the door. Chopin, she
thought, wondering if it was the radio, maybe a local concert; it
sounded good, but not familiar-slower than on the record Josh had
played so much lately, and a little rougher, the rhythms not quite so
smooth and polished, the occasional stumble over the notes. She liked
it; she thought the slower pace suited the music, the absence of
show-off virtuosity letting all the feeling come through, aching,
longing, tender. The bit of roughness reminded her of a man's voice
gone husky with emotion-Josh's voice. She suddenly felt tears coming
to her eyes, and brushed them hastily away. Damn it, she must be
tired. The records didn't usually affect her like that.

She slipped her shoes off-it was raining outside, they were wet-and
moved quietly down the hall and into the living room to turn on one of
the lamps beside the couch where Josh would be lying, too caught up in
the music to have noticed her coming in. But the couch was empty. She
straightened in surprise, noticing as she did that the radio and the
turntable on the bookcase were dark and still. Slowly, almost
disbelievingly, she turned towards the window and froze, holding her
breath, her heart in her throat.

He was sitting at the piano, the seat pushed back, his hands moving
over the keys and his long legs stretched out to the pedals. His head
was bowed, the expression on his face one she had never seen there
before. Concentration and relaxation and sadness and happiness and a
kind of deep, deep peacefulness all mixed together, looking completely
natural, completely right. She wondered suddenly if she had ever
really seen Josh before at all. He obviously hadn't heard her, didn't
know she was there. She sank onto the couch and tried to sit
completely still as he continued to play, utterly unaware of having an
audience. He finished the Chopin and moved on to something by Bach.
More Bach, then Mozart, then Beethoven, then something by Brahms. All
the composers he'd been listening to lately; not the most difficult
pieces in the repertory-she recognized that-but not the easiest,
either. What was the story behind this, she wondered. How was it
possible that Josh could be this good a pianist, and she knew nothing
about it? She was sure he couldn't have played in the past six or
seven years, not since she'd known him, not until the piano had
arrived, anyway. He'd never even seemed interested in music until
recently-and, of course, after the shooting, he'd actively avoided it
for a long time. She had wondered, when his mother had sent the piano,
but he'd been quite convincing in his denials. What on earth, she
wondered. What on earth?

She wiped her eyes again, and breathed in sharply. Maybe the room was
a little dusty, or maybe it was just the emotional state the music had
put her in, but something caught in her throat and made her cough; she
tried to suppress it, but couldn't. The playing stopped instantly.
"Donna?" Josh asked, softly. "How long have you been there? Are you
all right?" She got up and walked over to the piano, slid onto the
bench beside him, and wrapped her arm around his waist.

"I'm fine. A while. You didn't hear me come in. Why did you say you
didn't play, Josh?"

"I wasn't lying. I don't. I mean, I didn't-I thought I didn't. I
haven't played in years."

"How long?"

"I don't know-thirty, thirty-two years, I guess. Since I was a kid."

"You haven't played in that long and you can play like that now?"

"Yeah, I was surprised. It's not that great-there are a lot of
mistakes-but I didn't think I'd even remember the notes."

"I can't believe you knew those pieces thirty-two years ago. When you
were what, twelve? What were you, some kind of child prodigy or
something?"

There was a pause. When he answered, Josh sounded awkward. "Something
like that. It doesn't mean what you think it means-I wasn't ready to
go on tour or anything-but yeah, they used that word sometimes."

"Why on earth did you ever stop? If I could do that I'd never want to
do anything else. I didn't know you even cared about music until a few
weeks ago."

When he didn't answer, she asked him again: "Why, Josh?"

This time he tightened his arm around her waist and pulled her closer,
and she realized he was shaking. She looked up into his face and saw
the tears running down his cheeks: the first time she had ever seen
him cry. "I'm sorry," he muttered, wiping at his face with his free
hand. "Oh God. I'm sorry. I didn't think I-oh God, I'm sorry."

She was crying a little too as she pulled his head down onto her
shoulder and held him tight against her. "It's okay, sweetheart; it's
okay. Go ahead. It's okay."

He shuddered. His shoulders heaved. "God, I love you," he groaned. And
Donna wondered why the whole winter night outside didn't light up, and
the piano start to play by itself.



Part 8-


When he had gotten control of himself-much too soon, Donna thought-and
they had moved to the sofa, and she was sitting on his lap with his
arms around her and his face in her hair, Donna risked the subject
again. This time she realized she knew the answer, but she didn't know
the details, and she thought he'd be better off talking about it than
not. Thirty-two years was much too long to keep something like that
bottled up inside you, and she was pretty sure, from his reaction,
that he'd never talked about it to anyone before, in spite of all the
therapists he'd seen.

"It was because of Joanie, wasn't it, Josh?"

He nodded, his head brushing against her hair; she could feel another
shudder pass through his arms and chest, and his breathing hitched. A
couple of minutes passed before he could say anything.

"It was just so tied up with her. It had always been her thing; she
was always going to be a musician. And it was our thing, together. We
used to take turns practicing; I'd sit and listen to her, and she'd
listen to me. She'd wanted to be a famous pianist. Then when I got
good she changed her mind and decided she was going to be a violinist
and a conductor, though she kept up the piano, too. She had this
plan-she was going to conduct the New York Philharmonic, and I was
going to debut at Carnegie Hall and she would conduct me. She called
it The Great Master Plan. I don't suppose either of us would ever have
made it that far, but she thought we would. And then . . . I was
eleven when she died; she had just turned fifteen. I actually kept on
playing for a while after, but then I just couldn't do it any more,
and I stopped and told myself I was never going to play again. And I
didn't, I really didn't, until this afternoon, when I just-it's so
dark, and I get so lonely, and so-so scared, sometimes-and I thought,
if I could just touch it again, maybe I could . . . I don't know. I'm
sorry." He actually sounded as if he thought he needed to apologize to
someone. Donna realized suddenly that it was probably Joanie.

"Josh, what made you decide to stop? I mean, if you kept playing after
she died . . ."

He swallowed, hard. It took him a while to answer. "It was something
someone said. A teacher, not ours; a judge at a competition I played
in."

"What did he say?"

"She. She said-she'd known Joanie, had heard her play not long before-
but she didn't know what had happened."

"What did she say, Josh?"

There was a very long pause. Donna waited. When he finally answered,
his voice was almost inaudible.

"She said I was going to be better. Than Joanie. That I already was.
She said, 'You can beat your sister into the ground, dear.'"

"Oh, Josh. I'm sure she didn't mean-"

"No, of course she didn't mean anything; she didn't know. But I went
into the bathroom and threw up. And then I went home and shut the
piano and told my parents I wasn't going to play again, and I didn't.
I couldn't. I just couldn't."

Later, Donna asked something she'd always wondered about. "Josh,
didn't you see anyone after your sister died?"

"What do you mean?" He was thinking seeing, as in a date, which didn't
make any sense.

"I mean, didn't your parents have you see anyone with some training,
get you any help? Your family doctor, the school-usually the first
thing they do after a tragedy like that is make sure everyone involved
gets counseling, gets help with dealing with their feelings about it."

So they don't dig in and do stupid, self-destructive things like you
did, she thought. So they don't give up half of themselves out of some
misguided sense of loyalty and guilt. So they don't have nightmares
their whole lives. So they don't beat themselves ragged. So their
feelings aren't so twisted around they can't let anyone know them too
well. So they can tell someone they love that they love them, without
whatever fears and demons have been chasing you all your life.

"It was the seventies, Donna, the early seventies. People didn't
really do that then. There weren't grief counseling programs on every
street corner; trauma was something physical that happened to you, not
something inside. Everyone thought seeing a counselor or, God help us,
a shrink meant you were weak, or worse. You were supposed to sort
things out on your own."

"But I thought Jewish people were more progressive than that. All
those Woody Allen movies . . ."

Josh actually laughed. "That's New York. You had to be a New York Jew
to be cool about psychotherapy when I was a kid. We lived in
Connecticut; we were pretty waspy Jews. I think a couple of people did
suggest it to my parents-my mom told me once-but they were afraid
they'd give me a mental health record that would ruin my life. They
had a point, too; remember what happened to Eagleton, when it came out
he'd been treated for depression?"

"Nobody would care now."

"No, not about something like that. But it wasn't now, it was then. My
parents did the best for me they could. Their lives had been shot to
hell too, remember. It was all any of us could do just to get up in
the morning and get through a day."

Donna sat quietly for a while. She'd actually never thought about what
the immediate impact of his sister's death must have been on Josh's
family; she'd been too busy sorting out its long-term effects on him.
She wondered what they had done, in the first days after, the first
weeks. How it had changed his father, his mother, the whole dynamics
of their family life. How did you go on after something like that? Yet
people did. And then, to do it in the context of upper-middle-class
suburban seclusion, which allowed you a couple of weeks to have your
funeral and mourn, and then expected you to get back in the familiar
groove and go on just as before. So you wouldn't disturb anybody else
with your feelings. So other families wouldn't have to think too hard
about your tragedy and your grief. The wonder wasn't that Josh had
ended up as twisted up inside as he had; it was that he wasn't much
worse. They must have been a strong family, she thought, to have
ridden it out as well as they had. And he must have been strong-almost
frighteningly strong, to be able to leave one talent and passion
behind, and find others to drive him forward into such a successful,
accomplished life. But she thought she understood a little better the
hardness he sometimes showed people, the sarcasm and the mockery that
could be almost cruel at times, the pitilessness with which he could
go after someone who was getting in his, or the administration's, way.
He had had to learn to be hard to do what he'd done, and to do it on
his own. Cutting the music out of his life must have been like cutting
off his own arm, or leg, but he had had to do it to survive. Or he'd
thought he had to. She wondered what he was going to be like, now that
he'd let it back in.

* * *

"Your hair's starting to grow back."

"I know. It itches like hell; it's driving me crazy."

"It's all fuzzy up on top. And here, on your chest, and under your arms-"

"Ouch! Cut it out; that hurts."

"Hurts? You've got to be kidding. Your skin's only a little pink there."

"It's radiation burn, Donna. You're supposed to feel sorry for me;
I've been irradiated. It's like having a sunburn under your armpit."

"That's not a burn; it's just a teeny, tiny touch of color."

"It hurts, I tell you."

"You big baby."

"Have you ever had a sunburn under your armpit?"

"Yes, actually, I have."

"You have?"

"I was wearing this bikini, and I wanted to get a tan on my side, so I
sunbathed with my arms over my head-"

"With your arms over your head?"

"Well, one arm at a time."

"In a bikini?"

"A very small bikini, Josh. An itsy-bitsy, eeny-weeny-"

"This small? It came down to here?"

"Smaller than that."

"To here?"

"Smal-ooo, what are you doing?"

"Put those arms up over your head. I want to figure out where this
bikini went. See, I don't think you could have got sunburned in the
same places I am . . ."

* * *

"Donna?"

"Yes, Josh?"

"Donna-are you wearing something blue?"

"Yes, it's my tank to-Oh, Josh. Oh God, Josh. Can you really-?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I can."

"Oh God, Josh."

"Yeah."

* * *

"Why is it taking so damn long, C.J.?"

"I don't know, Josh. I keep telling you. Why don't you just go read
that briefing paper, and shut up about it for a bit?"

"I've made like a million calls about it."

"I know. Maybe that's why. Maybe they're sitting on it, on purpose,
just to pay you back for being such a pain in the ass about it."

"I'm not being a pain in the ass. I'm just asking. I'm just enquiring.
I'm just trying to find out why it's taking so damn long."

"And I really don't know. But I can think of possibilities. Maybe
someone's sick. Maybe they're on sabbatical. Maybe they have too many
classes to want to deal with it. Maybe-"

"Maybe they're all a bunch of incompetent morons who should be fired."

"They're probably tenured."

"That proves it then. They're tenured, they're morons; it's a law,
like gravity."

"Honestly, Josh-"

"Haven't you ever noticed? They can be absolute dynamite while they've
still got Assistant in front of their title. Then they get tenure, and
make Associate, and it starts to decline. By the time they've hit
Full, they're morons."

"Is that how it was at Harvard? Or Yale?"

"You bet. All the best teaching was done by graduate students, or new PhD's."

"Yeah, it was like that at Berkeley, too."

"I just wish they'd get on with it. It's been months, for Christ's sake."

"Go read that briefing paper and shut up, mi amor. You've got that
thing with McSheffery in half an hour, don't you?"

"God, yes. Is it really 12:30 already? Donna'll kill me."

"Get out of here, then."

"I'm going, I'm going."

"Good. 'Bye."

"But you'll call them again, too?"

"Out of here!"

"You'll call, C.J.?"

"I'll do anything to get you out of here."

"Call, then."

"I'll call."

"I'm gone."

"'Bye."

* * *

"Your tie's crooked, Josh."

"I need help."

"You're pathetic. You'd think a man your age could tie his own tie straight."

"I can. I just pretend I can't to get you close to me, you know. No,
you're not doing it right; you need to be closer. Mmmmm . . ."

"Cut it out, Josh! We're at the office. And I don't want to have to
fix my makeup again; we're due in the Rose Garden in fifteen minutes."

"That gives us ten minutes to neck, three for you to fix your makeup,
and two to get over to the Rose Garden."

"You're impossible. It takes me at least five minutes to fix my makeup
after you've been all over my face. And we're not supposed to be late.
Debbie and Margaret seemed to think the world would come to an end if
anyone was even a second late."

"You think?"

"Yes, I think. How could you have missed it? I can't imagine why it
matters; it's just the assistants' party."

"The Staff Appreciation Tea. In the Rose Garden."

"What's gotten into them this year, anyway? They've never made such a
big deal about it before."

"I can't imagine. I really can't imagine."

* * *

"And so, all of you, I hope you know how very much your work here is
appreciated. Without each one of you, and the extraordinary dedication
and skill each one of you brings to work every day, none of the
legislative accomplishments I've just mentioned could have been
accomplished. It's not an exaggeration to say that, without each one
of you, there would be no White House. There would be no Presidency.
There might be a building-1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, a grand and
beautiful building, rich with dignity and history-but it would have no
contemporary significance, no meaning in our country or our world
today, beyond the aesthetic and the historic. There might be a man
living in that building, and he might be called the President of the
United States, but he would be nothing but a figurehead, a powerless
and empty symbol, who effected no change in our laws and made no
difference in our country or our world. For it is only through you and
your work, your dedication, and your skill, that I have been able to
keep any of the promises I made to this country, when they elected me
to this great office and entrusted me with the title I bear. Thank
you, each of you, for all you do. I hope you'll keep on doing it-if
you all went out on strike, I'd never be able to find another group of
people talented enough to fill your shoes, or crazy enough to work the
hours you usually do. Especially for the money Congress has deemed fit
to pay you.

"In just a minute I'll be setting you free to dig into that wonderful
selection of pastries Manuel and his staff have put on that table over
there. Yes, Margaret, I saw how longingly you were looking at it while
I was talking. But before I do, there's one last piece of business I
want to take care of.

"Each of you who works at the assistant level is, in some way,
overqualified for the work you do. You all spend part, at least, of
your day answering telephones, scheduling appointments, making
photocopies, and sometimes forcing your boss to change his-or
her-shirt when he or she has been working for forty-eight hours
straight and hasn't had time to go home and take a shower. Each of you
also does much more than that. You act as a sounding-board for the
senior staff member you assist. You research complicated questions.
You write reports; you help draft sections of bills or speeches. It's
impossible to overstate the value of this part of the work you do, and
yet often, in the rush of daily business, it gets overlooked, or seems
to.

"I'm glad to say that it's possible to attach a real measure of
significance to this work, however. As some of you may know, many of
the fine universities in our country have begun to give academic
credit for what they call "life experience." Their faculty are willing
to accept such work as I've been describing as having equal value with
essays and research papers written by a student formally enrolled in a
class. If a student has been enrolled in a university, and has
accumulated enough credits in the regular way, his or her work in a
job like yours can be used to count towards the achievement of an
academic degree.

"One of you has recently completed her bachelor's degree in this way.
I've asked the president of her university if I might stand in his
stead to award her diploma today, and he has graciously agreed. It's
apparently very important that I say the right words, so I will now
announce that, by the authority invested in me by the faculty and
administration of the University of the great state of Wisconsin, I
hereby bestow upon Donnatella Moss the degree of bachelor of arts, cum
laude. Donna, if you'll just come forward, I can give you this piece
of paper that says you are entitled to all the rights and privileges
of a baccalaureate. I'm supposed to shake your hand while I do it, but
I'm hoping you'll bypass the hand and give me a big hug, instead . .
."

* * *

"I can't believe it!"

"Calm down, Donna."

"I can't believe it! I can't believe it! I can't believe it!"

"Calm down, Donna. You're squeaking."

"I can't believe you DID that. You actually submitted my notes and
reports for life experience credit, so I could get my degree?"

"It was C.J. and Toby who did it, Donna. I think they had quite a bit
of help from Carol and Bonnie and Ginger, too. I wasn't able to do
much."

"It was your idea, though! Josh-"

"You already had an awful lot of credits. You'd crammed more work into
two years than most people do in five."

"How did you do it?"

"Easy-I called the university Registrar."

"And they told you things? They actually divulged my academic record
without my permission? They accepted papers without my signature?"

"I charmed them. I made full use of the Lyman charm. Also White House
letterhead. I think it was the lure of the letterhead that really did
the trick, actually. Your transcripts were here on file anyway, so
they didn't have to divulge anything. And I remembered that Margaret's
rather good at forging signatures."

"So I got my degree under false pretenses?"

"Only if you refuse to acknowledge the signatures, which might be a
little unkind to Margaret. Not to mention the President, who was
inordinately pleased to get to award a degree. It seems he's always
wanted to."

"He did Zoe's."

"That wasn't enough. It gave him a taste for more."

"Josh?"

"What?"

"What was my major?"

"It says on the diploma; haven't you looked at it yet?"

"About fifty times, but I'm too excited to read anything."

"Political studies. With minors in collecting trivia, talking too
fast, philately-OUCH!"

"Josh?"

"Yes, Donna?"

"This is the very nicest thing anyone's ever done for me."

"I didn't do it for you, Donna. Everything that counted, you did yourself."

* * *

"Congratulations, Donna."

"Oh, thank you, Dr. Bartlet. I still can't quite believe it."

"You earned it, dear. All they did was gather your work together and
send it to the right people."

"And forge my signature."

"Shhh! I didn't hear that. I don't want to hear that. Was it Margaret?"

"That's what Josh says."

"I've always suspected her of criminal tendencies. Donna, is there any
news about Josh yet?"

"Not yet, Dr. Bartlet. He's going for an exam this week."

"It's been a year, hasn't it?"

"Yes, it has. They say this is an important one to clear; if he's okay
now, the odds get better."

"Yes, that's right."

"We still won't be sure."

"After five years, the odds of it recurring are the same as they are
for anybody to get it the first time. This is one step towards that."

"I know."

"Try not to worry too much, Donna. He's been doing really well."

"I know. I know he has. It's just-I'm still so scared."

"I know. I understand. But he's made it this far. You know there was a
good chance he wouldn't, don't you?"

"Yes. Yes, I know. It's all been so hard for him, Dr. Bartlet."

"Yes, it has. But he's a strong man, Donna, amazingly strong."

"Yes, he is."

"I don't mean just physically."

"No, I know."

"Let us know when you hear. We'll have a party to celebrate, when you
get the good news."

* * *

"Nah, you can't get rid of me that easily."

It was becoming his standard line. They were all gathered in the
Residence, for the party Abbey Bartlet had promised. Josh had been
hugged and slapped on the back until he was red in the face with
embarrassment. He had also eaten three large hamburgers, which Manuel
had obligingly burnt for him, and drunk as many beers as Donna would
let him. It was nice to have an appetite again.

"Come on, C.J.," the President was saying. "Sing something. Leo's told
me you do something called 'The Jackass.'" His eyes were twinkling.

"'The Jackal,' Mr. President?" C.J. answered the twinkle, laughing. "I
only lip-sync to that, sir. I don't think you have it in your CD
collection."

"Well, sing something else. You sing-I've heard you. Come on, we need
some music here. We're celebrating."

"I only sing when I'm drunk, Mr. President."

"You're drunk now, Claudia Jean."

"When I'm drunk and when I have accompaniment, sir. I don't do a
cappella, no matter how drunk I am."

"Well, let's get you some accompaniment, then. I have a piano here, a
very good piano. The best of pianos. Arthur Rubenstein played on this
piano; Vladimir Horowitz played this piano. Don't let that intimidate
anyone, though. Come on, who'll do it? We need someone to play the
piano so C.J. can sing."

"Not me, sir."

"Don't look at me, sir."

"I don't play. Not a chance."

"I took lessons for a year or two, but-"

"You'll have to look somewhere else, Mr. President. Maybe call the
Kennedy Center, ask them to send someone over. I'm sure they'd
interrupt a concert if you asked them to."

"Come on, one of you must play. I want to hear C.J. sing."

"Josh plays," Donna said, suddenly. Everyone turned and looked at her,
then at Josh, who blushed. He'd managed to keep his extra-curricular
skills quiet so far, and he'd been planning to go on keeping them that
way. He still felt a little odd about the whole thing.

"Josh? Have you been fooling around on that big Steinway your mother sent you?"

"What have you picked up? 'Chopsticks'? 'Heart and Soul'?"

"Doobie Brothers hits. I'll bet he plays Doobie Brothers."

"Well, if the President can stand it, I can sing to that. Come on,
Josh, mi amor, show us what you can do. You can't be much worse than
Sam."

Donna pushed him towards the Presidential piano.

"What do you want, Mr. President?" he asked, as he pulled out the
bench and sat down. C.J. came over and leaned on the piano beside him.

"What can you do, Josh?" the President asked.

Josh pushed his sleeves up, flexed his fingers, and sat for a minute,
thinking. Then he grinned. If he was going to out himself, he might as
well have fun doing it.

Slowly, with one finger, and as if he was having trouble finding the
notes, he started to pick out a familiar tune. Everyone laughed. C.J.
stood up straight, and began to sing. The others joined in.

"Hail to the Chief, we have chosen for the nation.
Hail to the Chief, we salute him, one and all.
Hail to the Chief, as we pledge cooperation,
In proud fulfillment of a great, noble call.

"Yours is the aim to make this country grander,
This you will do, that's our strong, firm belief.
Hail to the one we selected as commander,
Hail to the President! Hail to the Chief!"

"Hail to Josh! A noble effort," the President said, as he applauded.
He was laughing so hard his eyes were watering.

But Josh didn't get up. Instead he started to play the tune again,
this time using the fingers of his right hand properly. After the
first line, he brought up his left hand, and started to add an
accompaniment, chords and little rippling arpeggios that began very
softly, then bit by bit grew louder as he began to work variations on
the theme. Simple ones at first, adding a grace note here, a trill
there; then more elaborate changes. He varied the rhythm, trying the
melody out first as a waltz, then as a polka-which got him a
laugh-then in ragtime. He shifted to a minor key, and treated the
phrases with rubato, as if they were Chopin. Every time he played it
through, he transposed it up a half-note, and played a little more
loudly, till the piano was booming. When he figured he'd shown off
enough, he started to wind things up with big, dramatic cadences, but
he couldn't resist the temptation to do a Dudley Moore-like parody of
Beethoven, and carry on from one crashing conclusion to another until
his audience was laughing out loud. Finally he just took his hands off
the piano in mid-phrase, looked at them, and grinned. The applause was
huge. He took it with a mock bow from the piano seat. Then he cocked
an eyebrow at C.J., who had been standing staring at him, her mouth
open in amazement.

"Now, what was it you wanted, C.J.? Doobie Brothers?"

The party went on for some time.

* * *

"Donna? Come out here with me."

"It's late, Josh. We've got to get home."

"Come out here."

"You were brilliant tonight, Josh."

"Nah, just having fun. I was ready to kill you when you said I played."

"The President wanted someone to play. You can't just ignore the President."

"I serve at the pleasure of the President. And at the pleasure of
Donnatella Moss."

"Josh, what are you doing? Where are we going? We can't wander around
the White House grounds at night; the Secret Service will kill us.
Literally."

"It's okay, Donna. They know we're here."

"They do?"

"I talked to Ron earlier."

"You talked to Ron? Earlier? About wandering around the White House
gardens with me, tonight, in the middle of the night?"

"We're not wandering, Donna. We're moving with purpose. Direction. Intent."

"Intent to do what?"

"You'll see."

"Oh, look Josh. It's beautiful."

"Yes, it is."

"The moon-it's so big tonight. And the roses. I've never seen roses by
moonlight, Josh. Look at them."

"No thanks."

"What? Why ever not? They're beautiful."

"I've got something much more beautiful to look at."

"Oh, Josh."

"Oh, Donna. Beautiful Donna, Wonderful Donna, Amazing Donna-"

"Josh-"

"Smart Donna, Talented Donna-"

"Josh-"

"Sweet Donna, Sexy Donna, Darling Donna-"

"Josh, dear-"

"Funny Donna, Silly Donna, Indispensable Donna-"

"Josh, sweetheart-"

"Donna-of-my-heart, Donna-of-my-life-"

"Joshua."

"Donna-of-my-love, all my love, always-"

"Yes, Joshua?"

"I'm stalling, you know. Buying time."

"Yes, Josh dear, I know."

"You know what I'm trying to say?"

"Yes, of course. But I want to hear you say it."

"I do love you. You know that, don't you?"

"Yes, sweetheart. I love you too."

"Will you-do you think you might-do you think you could-ever-want-"

"Want what, Josh?"

"To-Damn it, I didn't think I was going to do this again."

"It's all right, sweetheart. I'm crying too."

"Will you?"

"Yes, dear."

"Really?"

"Yes."

"Marry me?"

"Yes, Josh. Of course I will."



Finis